Curse of the Scottish Play
by hbndgirl
Summary: It's no surprise when a mystery comes up after Iola asks Joe to help with the school play. However, things quickly take a grisly turn when a rash of murders begins in Bayport - murders that seem to somehow be related to the problems dogging the school play. Part 1 of the Chapters series.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: I'd like to thank you all in advance for reading this story and for reading and reviewing my past stories. In the short time that I've been publishing on this website, I've already received so much support from so many of you. I really appreciate it._

 _This story is the beginning of a trilogy which will include both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, although Nancy's part in the story doesn't begin to pick up until Part 2. As I plan to post three chapters a week, it will take a while for all the questions that are going to arise to get answered._

 _Just as a warning, there is some violence and emotional trauma throughout this trilogy._

Chapter I

"Hey, Joe, wait up!" sixteen-year-old Iola Morton called, waving her hand and quickening her steps as she trotted down one of the hallways in Bayport High School.

Joe Hardy, a blond seventeen-year-old, looked over his shoulder at her and stopped walking to let her catch up. The two had been friends almost as long as they could remember, but that friendship had gotten more complicated three or four years ago when Joe had first developed what would turn into a monster crush on Iola. For all those years, every time he was around her, it was a constant struggle between wanting to tell her how he felt and being terrified that doing so would ruin their friendship.

Iola was a little out of breath by the time she reached Joe. Her cheeks flushed and she grinned with a bit of embarrassment. "Oh, wow. I feel dumb and out-of-shape now."

"That's not what you wanted to tell me about, was it?" Joe asked.

"No. No, it's not." Iola shook her head as she collected her thoughts. "Actually, I wanted to ask you for a huge favor. I mean, really huge. It's totally okay if you say no. I'd understand."

"You'll have to tell me what it is before I can say either yes or no," Joe said. He was kidding more than anything – he already knew perfectly well that he'd say yes no matter what Iola asked of him.

Iola took a deep breath. "You know the school play?" She paused and it wasn't until Joe said, "Uh huh," that she continued. "Well, you know that Mrs. Certner, the drama teacher, you know, wanted to have the play one hundred percent student produced. Kayla Martinez and Pam Springer wrote the script, and Julie McVera is the director, and Chris Havens is the producer, and I'm the assistant director."

As she paused again for breath, Joe said, "Yeah. You were telling us all of this the other day at Callie's party."

"Right," Iola replied. "It's a great play. I mean, it's _Peter Pan_ , which isn't the most original idea ever, but it's still going to be great. We just have run into a huge problem, and I don't know of anyone else who can help us out besides you. You see, we decided, as an extra challenge – which honestly was kind of a bad idea to throw any extra challenges at ourselves – we decided to make it a musical. Trevor Gardiner wrote all the songs and he was going to do the music for them, but his parents up and decided to move within the next couple weeks."

"Can't Trevor record the music?" Joe asked.

"He was going to," Iola told him. "You know, just in case something happened and he couldn't play the music live like we wanted him to. But now, what with getting ready to move and everything, he just doesn't have time to do even that. So what I wanted to ask you was if you would be willing to do the music. We can just record it if you don't want to play it live. It's already written and everything. You just need to play it."

Joe didn't even hesitate to say, "Sure, Iola. I'd be glad to. And I'm game to play it live, if that's what you guys want."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Iola punctuated the sentiment by giving him a quick hug, causing Joe to blush in spite of himself. "Could you come to the rehearsal tonight? It'll give you a feel for the play."

"Sure thing," Joe said. "I'll see you there."

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe felt awkward as he slipped into the cafeteria where the drama club held their meetings and rehearsals since the school had never given them their own room. He didn't know very many of the kids in drama well. He knew Iola, of course, and Callie Shaw, who dated Joe's older brother Frank. Otherwise, the drama kids were their own clique who didn't seem to care to mix with the other kids. Especially the athletic kids, who were more the group that Joe usually mingled with.

Joe was relieved, then, when he was greeted enthusiastically by several of the members of the drama club. Granted, Iola and Callie were the most enthusiastic, but Joe felt that most of the others were sincere. He had a good instinct for such things, which had come in handy many times as an amateur detective.

Both Joe and his brother Frank, who was a year older than him, loved nothing better than solving mysteries, which was no doubt something that they had inherited from their father. Fenton Hardy was a renowned detective who had started out as an NYPD police officer before starting a private business in the much smaller city of Bayport.

"You can just watch, Joe," Iola told him. "It's just about time for us to get down to business anyway."

"Oh, sure, whatever," Joe replied, sitting down at one of the tables. Callie sat down next to him, which surprised him. "Don't you need to rehearse, too?"  
"They're not working on any of my scenes tonight," Callie explained. "I just have a small part – as one of the mermaids. I'm in charge of designing the backdrops, so I like to watch the rehearsals for all of the scenes to help me come up with ideas."

"Well, the play's bound to be great with Iola as the assistant director and you painting the backdrops," Joe said.

"And you doing the music," Callie added. "Honestly, we all kind of panicked when Trevor had to bail on us. We've had several bumps already – which isn't unusual when you're putting on a play! But this is the biggest one so far, and we were all afraid it would wreck the whole show."

"I'm not so sure it still won't," a boy's voice broke in from behind them.

Joe and Callie both turned to look at the speaker.

Callie glanced back at Joe apologetically, and then met the other boy's eyes again. "It's not going to, Evan. Joe's going to do just fine with the music."

"It's the first time I've ever hear of a jock who could tell the difference between a treble cleft and a B sharp," Evan replied.

Joe lowered his eyebrows and drew his mouth into a line. "Believe it or not, theater people aren't the only sort of people with multiple talents."

Something in the way he said it must have warned Evan not to carry this conversation any further. "Hey, no offense, man. We're all just jumpy, I guess. I'm starting to think this play is cursed." He chuckled. "You haven't heard anyone mentioning the Scottish play, have you, Callie?"

Callie rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. Nothing more has gone wrong with this play than any other production."

"Hold on," Joe said. "I think I missed something. What's the Scottish play?"

"It's an old theater superstition," Callie explained. "The story goes that if you mention the name of a particular Shakespeare play, the production you're working on will be cursed."

"Which play is that?" Joe asked, intrigued as always by stories of curses. He didn't believe in them, but they always kicked him into detective gear.

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," Evan quoted.

"You mean _Macbeth_?" Joe surmised.

Evan's eyes opened wider. "Joe, you shouldn't have said that."

"What?" Joe shook his head in bewilderment. "You're not saying you actually believe in that whole curse thing, are you?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Evan said. "But I don't see any point in taking chances. We don't want any more problems."

"Oh, come on, Evan," Callie broke in. "It's just a story. We all know that curses and stuff like that aren't real. And don't go around telling anyone about this. Sometimes when people think something bad is going to happen they unconsciously do things that cause it to happen. That's the only real danger a curse could cause us."

"Chillax, Cal." Evan grinned, but it looked forced. "I'm just kidding Joe around. You don't think we can let him into our club without any kind of initiation."

"Well, if being teased about bringing a curse down on this play is the only initiation I get, I guess I can live with that," Joe said. "But it had better be the only initiation."

"Wow, I knew you jocks could be uptight, but –" Evan shook his head as he walked away, leaving his sentence unfinished.

"Are there very many people in this club like him?" Joe asked Callie as they watched him go.

Callie sighed. "There's one in every group. Most of the kids are great, though, and they're super grateful to you for helping us out. Who knows? We just might get you to join the drama club yet."

Joe grinned. "I wouldn't count on it. Between school and homework and sports and solving mysteries and taking a few hours a night for sleep, I don't have time for acting."

Callie laughed. "You've got a point there. Maybe we should bring it up to the school board that in the interest of diversifying the students' interests they should shorten the school day and not allow teachers to assign so much homework."

"I wish," Joe said. "I don't think the board will go for it, though."

"Probably not," Callie replied.

"Callie." Iola scurried up to them. "Have you seen Jason anywhere today? He's not here."

"Which Jason?" Joe asked as Callie shook her head.

"Jason Reid," Iola told him. "He's our Peter Pan." She sighed. "I guess we'll just have to get someone to stand in for him until he gets here. I've already texted him to get over here ASAP."

"Joe could stand in," Callie suggested. "That'd be better than me. Some of the kids have a hard time keeping a straight face when a girl is reading a guy's lines."

"Would you, Joe?" Iola asked, clasping her hands hopefully.

"Sure, why not?" Joe replied.

Iola got a script for him and showed him the scene that they were working on. Because they were still in the early stages of the rehearsals, they hadn't done much in the way of blocking yet.

Julie, the director, positioned Joe right in front of the lunch counter. "You can just stand here and read the lines. Don't worry about doing any acting." She turned to Iola. "Have you heard from Jason yet?"

"No, not yet," Iola replied.

Standing in for the lead actor, Joe had a lot of lines to read. It was the first time since about the fifth grade that he had done any acting like this, and he had forgotten how much fun being part of a play could be.

The only thing marring the fun was the bad attitude of a few of the kids. Evidently, they resented Joe's presence and particularly his standing in for the lead role. The main one causing issues was Clarissa Margot, a junior who was convinced she was going to be this generation's Audrey Hepburn one day. She was the only one who thought so, though. The others considered her immensely rude and egotistic, with very little talent.

In the middle of one scene, she threw her script on the floor and crossed her arms with an angry huff.

"What is it now?" Julie asked, making no effort to disguise her annoyance.

"I can't act with this idiot," Clarissa said, gesturing at Joe.

Joe was taken aback. Everyone else in the room fell silent as well, except for one girl somewhere behind Joe who muttered just loud enough for him to hear, "You can't act anyway."

Julie opened her mouth to say something, but Clarissa jumped in to interrupt. "Literally anyone would be better. Even Evan. Can't he stand in? He's not in this scene."

"He's rehearsing his own scene on the other side of the room," Julie reminded her.

Terry Shanth, one of the actors, whispered to Joe, "That's some insult if she'd prefer Evan Donahue to you."

"Why do you say that?" Joe asked, also in a quiet voice.

"She hates his guts," Terry told him. "Some feud between her parents and his."

"Clarissa," Julie was saying sternly, about to spell out just how unacceptable the actress's behavior was.

She didn't get a chance to. She was suddenly interrupted by a small explosion that sounded almost exactly like a gunshot.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter! I'd especially like to thank Cherylann Rivers and max2013 for your reviews!_

Chapter II

Several people screamed as the explosion still echoed in their ears. Instinctively, Joe dropped to his knees, dragging Terry with him, since he was the only one within reach. Joe glanced around to see if the shooter was in sight. He wasn't.

Given a chance to catch his breath and collect his wits, he realized that the sound hadn't been a gunshot and that it had come from the cafeteria's kitchen. He got to his feet and ran back there to see what had exploded.

"What happened?" Iola asked him. She and Callie and a couple of the braver kids had followed him.

Joe stopped them all in the doorway as soon as he saw what was inside. Tiny shards of glass lay everywhere – on the floor, on the counters. Two big pieces of glass were still lying on one of the burners of the stove, which Joe could see was turned on.

"Somebody must have left that burner on with a glass dish on it," he explained. "You'd all better stay here. There's glass all over the floor."

He carefully walked over to the stove and turned the burner off, just barely touching it. His detective instincts told him not to ruin any fingerprints, even though it had most likely been an accident.

"But would that have caused the dish to explode?" Callie asked. "You bake in glass dishes."

"It can happen," Joe assured her. "I've seen it before." He didn't mention that on that other occasion, he had been the one to turn on a burner on his mother's stove and forget about it, which had fortunately resulted in nothing worse than the destruction of one of his mother's glass pie plates.

"But how did it happen?" Iola interjected. "I mean, how did the stove get turned on? None of us touched it."

"Are you sure?" Joe asked. "None of you were in here?"

Everyone denied it. While they were still chattering about it excitedly, a security guard came bursting into the cafeteria.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

Several kids began explaining at once and it took several minutes for the guard to get a clear picture of what had happened. By that time, everyone was so worked up that Julie told them all to go home; they could rehearse more tomorrow.

HBHBHBHBHB

"Where have you been, Joe? You're almost late for supper," Laura Hardy greeted her younger son as he came in through the kitchen door.

"Hanging out with Iola and Callie," Joe replied, quickly taking his place at the dinner table.

"Aren't they at rehearsal for the school play?" Frank asked.

"About that," Joe said. He explained about Iola's request and then told them about the mishap at rehearsal.

All of the members of the Hardy family listened with interest to what Joe had to say. Fenton's sister, Gertrude, who lived with the family, shook her head when Joe had finished.

"I don't understand why you boys can't do something as simple as helping out at a rehearsal for a play without some disaster happening," she said.

Frank and Joe exchanged grins.

"I wouldn't call it a disaster, Aunty," Joe replied. "And whether it was or not, I don't see how it's my fault. Unless, of course, I really did bring down the curse of the Scottish play on the production."

"What are you talking about, Joe?" Fenton asked.

"Oh, one of the kids was trying to convince me that if you say the word _Macbeth_ while you're working on a play, you're play will be cursed with bad luck," Joe explained.

"What nonsense!" Aunt Gertrude said. "I've always heard that theater people were superstitious, but I've never heard of such a thing. What if the play you're putting on is _Macbeth_?"

Joe shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't ask. I doubt anyone in the school play actually believes it anyway."

"People usually have that much sense, Gertrude," Fenton told her.

"I wonder why Jason didn't show up," Frank mused. Any hint of a mystery always intrigued him, even if it was one that probably had a mundane solution like this one.

HBHBHBHBHB

Later that evening, when Frank and Joe were working on homework in Frank's room, both of them were still thinking about what had happened at the rehearsal. Joe was playing with his pen, clicking the point in and out absent-mindedly. After several minutes, Frank couldn't take the clicking sound any longer.

"Joe, could you cut it out?" he asked.

"Huh?" Joe replied, startled out of his thoughts.

"Could you stop clicking the pen?" Frank spelled it out.

"Oh." For the first time, Joe realized that that was even what he was doing. He glanced down at the pen in his hand and then back up at Frank. "I was just thinking about that glass dish again. I've been trying to figure it out and I just don't see how it could have happened. All the cafeteria people left hours before that when lunch was over. That dish couldn't have been sitting on a hot burner all that time without exploding earlier."

Frank nodded. "Obviously someone else came in and turned the burner on, but I don't see why anyone would do that."

"Then there's also Jason not showing up and Trevor not being able to carry through on the music," Joe added. "You don't suppose someone is sabotaging the play, do you?"

"I really don't see why anyone would do _that_ ," Frank replied. "What would anyone have to gain by it?"

"Unless they're just being a jerk," Joe pointed out.

Frank shook his head. "If that was the case, I could see the exploding dish, but they wouldn't go so far as to waylay Jason and they couldn't cause Trevor's family to move."

"That's true," Joe admitted.

"According to Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is usually correct," Frank said, "and the simplest answer is that it's three unrelated events. Of course, if anything more happens, then that won't be the simplest answer anymore."

"Whose razor?" Joe asked.

"Occam's Razor," Frank repeated. "You know, the fourteenth century monk who said that if there's more than one hypothesis, the one with the fewest assumptions is probably correct. Haven't any of your teachers mentioned that?"

"Oh, sure, probably. Maybe," Joe said. "Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye out for anything else that happens at the rehearsals."

They both fell silent as they turned to their homework again, although neither was able to focus on studying very well. They knew it would be better for everyone else if the odd events really did turn out to be nothing, but at the same time, the prospect of another mystery to solve excited them.

Joe's phone buzzed, alerting him to a text message. He saw right away that it was from Iola, and his heart skipped a beat. Every time she started a conversation with him, he always half-hoped that it was because she wanted to tell him that she felt the same way about him as he felt about her.

When he opened the message, he saw that it was completely unrelated to that: _There won't b rehearsal tomorrow. Jason can't b there._

 _Why not?_ Joe texted back to here.

About half a minute went by before the reply came: _Didn't say. Just said wouldn't b in school tomorrow._

"Hmm," Joe said aloud. "Looks like another strange thing has happened already."

"What?" Frank asked.

"Jason Reid is skipping out on rehearsal and school tomorrow, too," Joe told him. "Anyway, the rehearsal tomorrow is canceled. I guess they didn't want me to stand in again."

"I wonder what's going on," Frank mused.

He and his brother were thinking the same thing. If there was someone purposely causing problems to the play, they would need to find out what was going on with Jason to solve the mystery. On the other hand, they had found out from experience that it didn't win them any friends to pry into people's personal lives only to find out that there was no mystery to be found there.

HBHBHBHBHB

As Frank parked his and Joe's shared car in the school parking lot the next morning, an ancient yellow jalopy pulled in next to him with a clank and a cough of its engine. Frank and Joe grinned as they got out of their car.

"My hat's off to you, Iola," Frank said to Iola Morton as she got out of the driver's seat. "You've survived another ride in the Queen."

"If I were you, I'd have started walking instead of riding in it," Joe added. "It'd probably be faster."

Iola laughed, but her brother Chet, who had been driving, shook his head. The Queen, as Chet had named his car, was his pride and joy, although it was also the cause of a lot of teasing from his friends. He knew that their teasing was all in good fun and didn't really mind it, but it was part of the game that he could never let on.

"Aw, come on, Joe," Chet said. "The Queen's not an 'it' – she's a 'her'. Besides, if you were going to walk all the way from our farm for school, you'd have to start getting up a lot earlier than you do."

"It would be worth it to keep from being rattled to death riding around in _her._ " Joe, still grinning, emphasized the pronoun. "Not to mention what that would do to my image."

"It would improve it," Chet asserted. "The Queen's a real classic, the sort of car that gets entered in parades."

"For demolition derbies," Joe shot back.

"Okay, okay, you guys," Iola cut in. "Enough about Chet's car. You'd think after all this time you'd run out of things to say about it."

"Some things will never change," Frank told her. "But, seriously. We'll be late if we don't hurry up."

As the four of them speed walked toward the school building, Joe positioned himself so that he was beside Iola.

"Say, did you ever find out why Jason's not going to be around for rehearsal tonight?"

"No." Iola pursed her lips thoughtfully. "To be honest, I don't know why Julie called the rehearsal off. I mean, everyone needs to practice, not just Jason. We could just have someone stand in for him again. It seems like a waste of time to completely call it off."

"Who has the sheet music for the play?" Joe asked. "I might as well get started looking it over, at any rate."

"I think Chris Havens, the producer, has it," Iola replied. "I'll ask him to give it to you before the end of the day."

Before she had finished the sentence, Frank's phone began to ring. He looked at the screen, which showed Callie's name, and fell behind his friends a few steps to answer.

"Hi, Callie," he said. "What –"

Callie cut him off. "Are you at the school yet?" Her voice was edged with urgency and concern.

"Yeah," Frank told her. "Is something wrong?"

"I'll say," Callie replied. "Can you come over to the art room? You and Joe should see this."

"Sure, we'll be there in a minute."

Callie ended the call on her end, and Frank trotted for a few steps until he caught up to the others.

"Hey, guys," he said. "Callie wants us to meet her at the art room. Something's wrong."

Chet and Iola followed along behind the Hardys as they hurried to their rendezvous with Callie. When they arrived, they saw her standing in front of what was clearly meant to be the backdrop for a stage. The edges showed an elaborate painting of an ocean cove, but the center was covered with huge blotches of red and blue paint.

"What happened, Callie?" Frank asked.

She turned and looked at the newcomers. "It's the scenery for the play. Someone dumped paint all over it."


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this story. An especial thank you to max2013, TinDog, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews. Each one of them means a lot to me._

Chapter III

"That's horrible," Iola said in indignation, surveying the ruined painting. "You'd nearly finished this one."

Callie nodded, struggling not to let anyone see that she was on the verge of frustrated tears. "I don't know why anyone would do something like this. It's a stupid prank."

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Joe blurted out.

Callie looked at him in surprise and a little confusion. "What else could it be?"

Joe shrugged. "I don't know. It just seems like there are a lot of problems with this play all of a sudden. And I'm no theater person myself, but I'd be kind of surprised if mysteriously vanishing leads, exploding dishes, and vandalized backdrops were ordinary problems to run into in a production."

"You're right," Iola agreed. "There is something weird going on. I just don't see what or how or why."

"Well, if you as the assistant director wanted Frank and me to find out, we're ready, willing, and able," Joe said.

"I already know what's going on." Chet's voice was serious.

"You do?" Callie asked.

"It's Joe," Chet went on.

"Me?" Joe raised an eyebrow. He realized that Chet was no doubt teasing, but he didn't see where he was going with it.

"Uh huh." Chet nodded solemnly. "I heard all about how you brought down the curse of the Scottish play on the whole production."

Joe groaned and rolled his eyes. Callie couldn't help but grin a little and shake her head.

"I must have missed something," Frank said.

"Oh, so Joe didn't admit to you that he said the M-word at the rehearsal and cursed the play," Chet went on.

"Who told you about that?" Joe asked. "It wasn't you, Callie, was it? You were the only one there besides Evan."

"Honestly, I'd forgotten about that until just now," Callie told him.

"I heard it from Len Bertrand," Chet told him.  
"But Len wasn't even anywhere in the room," Joe protested. "How would he know?"

Chet shrugged. "Someone else must have told him. What's the big deal?"

"Nothing, I guess," Joe replied. "It's just that if the whole school is gossiping about me, I'd rather if they were saying something more complimentary than that I accidentally cursed the play."

Frank looked at his wristwatch. "We're late already. We'd better get to class. When we get a chance, Joe and I will come back and see if we can find any clues. In the meantime, if anyone runs into Julie or Jason, we need to ask them what's going on with the rehearsal."

"Jason said he's not going to be in school today," Iola reminded him.

"I know," Frank said, "but just in case."

HBHBHBHBHB

As it turned out, Frank himself was the first one to run into Julie McVera in the hallway between classes later that morning. Frank only had a few moments to plan out how to start the conversation, which were moments that he definitely needed. As far as he could remember, he had never talked to Julie other than saying "hello" in the hall a few times. Going up to her and starting a conversation would be awkward, and if she had anything to hide, she would certainly be on her guard, since pretty much the whole school knew about the Hardy brothers' detective career.

Thinking through all of that took up the few moments that Frank had, so he had to just jump right into the conversation. "Hi, Julie."

"Hi," she replied. She kept walking, apparently not suspecting the conversation to last any longer.

"I hear you're directing the school play." Frank fell into step beside her. "And that the play's been having some trouble."

Julie stopped suddenly, but didn't make eye contact with him. "Who told you that?"

"Considering that my brother, my girlfriend, and one of my best friends are all working on the play-" Frank said.

Julie nodded and looked at him. "Right. Of course. I'm just a little on edge. What about it, though? Are you wondering if there's a mystery to solve?" As she asked the last question, her voice took on a defensive tone.

"The scenery Callie was working on got vandalized," Frank told her, "and I heard about what happened at rehearsal last night and that the rehearsal tonight got canceled. It can't all be coincidence."

Julie took in a deep breath and lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's not. But I don't want to talk about it here in front of all these people. How about you and Joe and Callie and Iola meet me at my house after school? To be honest, I'd feel a lot better getting some advice about all of this."

Before Frank could say another word, either accepting or refusing the information, she hurried away down the hall.

HBHBHBHBHB

At lunch, Frank filled the others in on his encounter with Julie. Besides Joe, Callie, Iola, and Chet, the rest of their particular group of friends were sitting at the table also, listening with rapt attention. These were Biff Hooper, Tony Prito, Phil Cohen, and Jerry Gilroy. Because they hadn't heard anything about the case before this, they had to be filled in on everything.

Joe, Callie, and Iola all talked over each other, trying to get the story out. When they had finally delivered a sufficiently coherent version of the story, Chet had to add the details about the curse.

Joe groaned and gave him a playful shove. "Nobody cares about all that curse business, Chet. You don't have to keep telling it to everybody."

"You mean you just don't want everyone knowing that you're the reason the play's having issues," Chet replied.

Biff shook his head. "I don't think the play's being cursed by the ghost of Macbeth or whatever. It's just suffering from the Hardy curse."

"The Hardy curse?" Frank repeated.

"Yeah," Biff said. "Every time you guys get involved in anything, a mystery always pops up. You should have never asked Joe to help you if you wanted everything to go smoothly, Iola."

Iola smirked. "You could be right. Looks like, either way, it's all on you, Joe."

Joe knew the others were just teasing, but he still couldn't help feeling a pang of frustration at their words. Frank felt it, too, so he hastened to shift the topic of the conversation.

"Whatever's causing it, we all know it's not a curse," he said. "I just don't see any reason for sabotaging a school play. Do you girls have any idea? You've been the closest to what's been happening."

Callie bit her lip thoughtfully, and then leaned forward over the table. Instinctively, everyone else also leaned forward to hear what she had to say.

"I can think of one person who might want to sabotage the play," she confided. "Clarissa Margot. She was furious that she got only a small part. She's convinced that Julie and Chris didn't give her lead role because they're jealous of her. Maybe she's trying to get revenge."

"It could be," Iola agreed. "Clarissa is your traditional diva, with all the temper and pettiness that comes with it."

"Then we'll look into her," Frank said.

"Hey, I don't suppose that while you guys are talking to Julie, you could let us investigate Clarissa," Biff suggested.

"Yeah, that's a great idea," Tony agreed. "We've spent enough time around you guys, we ought to know what we're doing by now."

Frank and Joe exchanged looks, knowing each other well enough that they were able to come to an agreement just by that one action.

"Okay," Frank said. "You guys can give it a try."

"Just don't weird her out or anything," Joe added.

"You don't trust us?" Biff asked, pretending to be taken aback.

"Well, now that you mention it –" Joe left his sentence off with a grin.

HBHBHBHBHB

"There's her house." Callie pointed out a modest two-story home on the right side of the street from where she sat in the front passenger seat of the Hardys' car.

Frank parked the car next to the curb, and all four people in the car climbed out. Frank and Joe paused for a moment to survey the house. Although it was small, it was well-kept. It looked like it had been painted a pleasant cream color recently. There were flowerbeds all around the house, but this late in the fall, they were empty. A very neat picket fence surrounded the lawn.

"Looks like the McVeras do a good job keeping their place up," Joe commented.

Iola nodded. "They take a lot of pride in the home. Honestly, in everything they do. It must be killing Julie to be having these problems coming up with the play."

Before they reached the door, Julie opened it and greeted them. "I'm glad you came. Come in."

The first room they entered was a living room that was just like the outside of the house – small but neat. Julie's mother was sitting on the sofa, reading a book. She looked up when the guests came in.

"Hello," she said. "I don't believe I've met any of you before."

Without giving any of the others a chance to say anything, Julie quickly introduced them. "This is Callie, Frank, Iola, and Joe. They're helping me on the play. Come on, guys, let's go up to my room and we can talk it over."

Julie led them up a staircase and then into a bedroom. There was no place to sit besides the bed, so all five of them remained standing. Julie began to rummage around in a drawer of her dresser.

"Doesn't your mom know what's going on?" Joe asked.

"No," Julie admitted, not looking up from her search. "I haven't told anybody about this yet. But you guys can help. I hope. I'm so scared, I – I almost want to call the whole play off."

"What?" Iola blinked. "Why? What happened?"

"This." Julie pulled a piece of paper out of the drawer and handed it to Frank. "I found that tucked inside one of my school books yesterday."

Frank unfolded the paper and read aloud the message, which had been printed from a computer:

 _If you keep holding rehearsals, you'll be rehearsing your own death._

"Ouch." Joe winced as if in pain.

"I know, right?" Julie said. "It's pretty creepy."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so," Joe replied. "I was thinking it was pretty corny. It sounds like something straight out of a cheap mystery story."

"It probably is," Frank told him. "I mean, whoever wrote it most likely goes to our high school and isn't a hardened criminal. Probably most of what they know about crimes comes from what they've read."

"Well, corny or not, I don't like having my life threatened," Julie interjected. "Why would anyone do it? Why would anyone go so far just to wreck a play?"

Frank shook his head. "That's what we've all been asking ourselves."

"A death threat, corny or creepy, is serious business," Callie added. "I think you should tell the police, or at least the school officials."

"No," Julie said. "I – I don't know how to explain it. I don't want people to start gossiping about all of this, at least not until it's over. Do you guys think you can find whoever is responsible?"

"Sure we can," Joe replied without hesitation.

"We can try, anyway," Frank countered. "I really think you should go to the police and the school like Callie says. If we don't turn anything up in twenty-four hours, I'm going to insist that you do."

Julie took in a deep breath and tilted her head just slightly as she weighed the suggestion. "Okay. Twenty-four hours. I just hope you find something before then."


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and following this story! I'd also like to give an extra thank you to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, and TinDog for your reviews of this story. I really appreciate them all!_

Chapter IV

"This isn't exactly my idea of a smooth ride, if you know what I mean," Biff commented.

He was wedged into the backseat of Chet's jalopy along with Phil and Jerry as Chet drove down the street that Clarissa Margot lived on.

"Couldn't you at least move your seat up, Tony?" Biff went on.

Tony, who was sitting directly in front of Biff in the front passenger seat, smirked. "In the words of the Falcon, no. We drew straws on who got to sit in front and you lost. Deal with it."

"I say we redraw on the way home," Jerry said. "And this time, we make Chet take his chances with the rest of us."

"And have one of _you_ driving _my_ car?" Chet asked. "No way. It takes a special touch to make the Queen run smoothly."

"Too bad you don't have it." Phil winced as the car bounced again. "How can driving on the street be this rough?"

"Wait – isn't that the address right there?" Tony pointed out a blue-gray house on the lefthand side of the street, which was just falling behind them.

Chet hit the brakes, and the Queen jolted to a halt. "Okay," he said. "Here we go. Remember the plan, guys."

"That's pretty easy for us," Jerry reminded him. "The only ones who do anything in this plan are Tony and Phil."

"That's because they look the least threatening," Chet replied. "Send you or Biff in there, and she'll think we sent a couple of strongarm men in to interrogate her."

"Besides, everyone knows that Phil works part-time for the school newspaper," Tony added. "What could be less suspicious to Clarissa than the paper sending someone over to interview the greatest actress in the play?"

"Except that Phil always writes the science column," Biff pointed out.

"Aw, come on. Let's get this over with," Phil said.

He and Tony got out and they crossed the street. When they rang the bell, it was answered by Clarissa's father, a stern and imposing man.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"Mm. Um," Tony stuttered about, surprised by the man's brusque manner. "I'm Tony Prito and this is Phil Cohen. We, uh, wanted to get an interview with Clarissa."  
"For the school paper," Phil added.

"Clarissa's not here," Mr. Margot said, and began to close the door.

"Wait!" Tony said. "I mean, where is she? When is she supposed to get home?"

"With her, who knows?" Mr. Margot scowled. "She's just like her mother. The sooner she turns eighteen and gets out of the house, the better. Then I'll stop having guys coming to 'interview' her or 'study with her' or who knows what kind of excuses you come up with."

Tony and Phil both blinked as the door was slammed in their faces.

"That went well," Phil finally said.

Tony shook his head. "With a loser like that for a father, I almost feel sorry for Clarissa. Well, let's go see if any of the other guys have a backup plan."

He had just stepped off the curb and into the street when a car came screeching around the corner.

"Hey! Watch out!" Phil shouted, grabbing Tony and yanking him back onto the sidewalk.

Tony's heart was pounding from the close shave. It took him several deep breaths before he was able to smile shakily and say, "Thanks for the save."

Phil was still watching the car, which had stopped in front of the Margot house. Without taking his eyes off of it, he said, "Sure, anytime. Did you miss the 'look both ways before you cross the street' lesson when you were three or something?"

"Musta slipped my parents' minds," Tony countered. "Speaking of minds, I'm going to give that guy a piece of my mine, since he stopped anyway."

He ran to the driver's door and yanked it open. "Do you think you own the road or s-" He stopped abruptly when he realized that the driver was none other than Clarissa.

"Or what?" she asked in annoyance, pushing past Tony to get out of the car. "It's not my fault you're dumb enough to start crossing the street while there's traffic coming."

"I doubt the court would have agreed if you'd hit me." Tony's anger won out over his surprise at seeing that the driver was the person he had come to talk to. "I was in the crosswalk."  
"Cool it, Tony," Phil said. "No use getting her mad."

Clarissa looked from one to the other. "Who are you guys, anyway? I've never seen you hanging around here before."

"I'm Phil Cohen and this is Tony Prito." Phil held out his hand to shake Clarissa's, but she ignored it. "We're here to interview you about the play for the school paper. You know, an inside look at the experiences of one of the greatest actresses in the Bayport High Drama Club."

Clarissa smiled and brushed her hair back behind her ear with her hand, obviously flattered. "Well, I suppose that would be all right. Sorry about almost hitting you, Tony. You just need to be more careful."

Tony grumbled something under his breath, but at a warning look from Phil, he didn't say anything out loud.

Clarissa led them inside. Her father was still in the front room. He merely snorted at them and then pointedly ignored them. Clarissa also turned up her nose at him as she took the boys into the living room.

"Nobody will bother us here," she said loudly, clearly intending the words more for her father than for her visitors. "You two can sit down. I'll be right back."

As she left the room, Tony and Phil exchanged glances. Then they sat down in armchairs.

"I'm glad she didn't take us upstairs," Phil said. "Who knows what kinds of stories her father would tell people about us?"

Tony grimaced. "I do. Anyway, that won't matter if we don't make it out of here alive. Clarissa already tried to kill me, and her dad looks like he's already killed a few people."

Phil rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous."

"It would solve the case pretty fast, though," Tony mused. "The other guys are all outside and could be witnesses, and anyone who randomly murders guests would be crazy enough to sabotage a play out of revenge."

"Shh!" Phil warned him as Clarissa came back in the room.

She didn't seem to have overheard. She sat down on the sofa across from Phil, holding several papers in her hand. "I know what you want to talk to me about – my future in Hollywood and on Broadway and so forth and so on. As fascinating as that would be, though, I've got something even juicier for you."

"What?" Phil asked.

Clarissa handed the papers to him. "I have here documented evidence that someone on this production is trying to kill me."

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe looked at his cell phone as he left Julie McVera's house with Frank, Iola, and Callie. "It's only five-thirty. What do you say we call on Jason Reid and see what's going on with him? Seeing what happened to Julie, it might be serious."

"Good idea," Frank agreed. "Does he live near here, Cal?"

"I think so," Callie replied. "Yeah, it's only a few streets over. I've been there before for cast parties and things. I think I could find it again."

She guided them straight to the Reid house, and they went up to knock on the door. Jason's mother answered.

"Hi," she said pleasantly. "Are you some of Jason's friends?"

"Yeah," Iola replied. "We're working on the play with him."

"It's so nice of you to come and visit him," Mrs. Reid told them, ushering them inside the door. "I'm surprised he told you what happened. He was so embarrassed about it. I still don't understand how it happened."

"How what happened?" Joe asked.

Mrs. Reid looked surprised. "So he didn't tell you?"

"No," Joe said. "We figured something must be wrong, though, since he missed rehearsal last night and he wasn't in school today, so we decided to come and see what was up."

"Oh. That's very nice of you," Mrs. Reid said again. "You see, Jason is horribly allergic to nuts. Horribly allergic. Somehow, something with a little bit of peanut butter got in his lunch yesterday. He didn't eat it at school – thank goodness for his sake. He would have never wanted to go back. He came home for a few minutes between school getting out and the rehearsal and ate it here. I had to call 911. It was horrible."

"That is horrible," Iola agreed. "Is he all right now?"

Mrs. Reid nodded. "He's much better. The doctor said he should stay home from school for at least a day, maybe two, depending on how he feels tomorrow morning. Knowing Jason, he'll probably want to stay home an extra day. He's so self-conscious about his allergies that he begged the school not to tell any of the other students. He said he could watch out for himself to not eat anything with nuts. After this, we'll have to talk that over again."

"Does Jason have any idea how peanut butter got in his lunch?" Frank asked.

"No. That's the part of this I really don't like." Mrs. Reid pursed her lips. "Of course, I don't like any of it, but that part makes me wonder if someone did this on purpose. For some sort of sick, twisted joke, maybe. You see, I always fix a lunch for Jason to take with him. That way he doesn't have to ask the cafeteria people if there's any nuts in the food or anything. He really hates having to do that. He didn't finish his lunch, though, yesterday, you see, so he had some that he brought home and ate here. He insists that nobody have him anything that he put in his lunchbox and that there was nothing there that I didn't send with him."

"So the only way it could have happened is if someone got hold of his lunchbox and put peanut butter on something that was already in there," Joe said.

"Exactly." Mrs. Reid nodded. "But why? If none of the other kids knew he's allergic, why would they even think of something like that for a prank? And if they did know, why would they pull such a stupid, dangerous joke?"

"It's a good question," Frank told her. "Have you reported it to the school?"

"Yes, and the police," Mrs. Reid said. "Jason didn't want us to, but his father and I overruled him. There's not a whole lot either of them can do, since there's no evidence and Jason keeps saying that no one at school has a grudge against him or anything. They're keeping it pretty quiet, though. We all decided that it's best for Jason to not embarrass him as much as possible."

"He shouldn't feel embarrassed," Iola commented. "It's not like it's his fault."

"I know." Mrs. Reid sighed. "I've told him that I don't know how many times before. Still, I suppose it makes him feel different from all the other kids and he doesn't like it. I can't blame him for that. Well, you came to talk to him, not me. I'll go up and see if he wants to see you. I know that sounds rude, but he gets pretty temperamental about this."

"It's okay," Frank said. "In fact, we can come back another day. We just wanted to find out what happened and make sure he's okay."

"Well, thank you for that," Mrs. Reid replied. "Maybe if I told Jason that he has friends like you who couldn't care less about his allergies, he wouldn't be so self-conscious about it."


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and following this story. A very big thank you to EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, max2013, and TinDog for your reviews on the previous chapters! It means a lot to me._

 _Also, to all of my American readers, happy Fourth of July!_

Chapter V

"This is crazy." Frank shook his head as he turned off the car in the Hardy driveway.

"No kidding," Joe agreed, making a face. "What was Chet thinking, parking right in front of the garage?"

Frank rolled his eyes, half annoyed, half amused.

"I think Frank meant that the case is crazy," Callie said. "Not Chet's parking."

"I know that," Joe replied. "I'm just trying to lighten everybody up. If Clarissa's been targeted by our mystery saboteur – which is pretty likely since the guys are here to report in person – then those guys are probably pretty tense. It won't help anything if we're all uptight."

The others had to admit that he had a point. They went in through the kitchen, where they met Laura and Aunt Gertrude.

"You boys didn't tell us you were having a party," Aunt Gertrude said. "You've got half a dozen of your friends in there who've been waiting for you for almost half an hour."

"Sorry," Frank replied. "It's for the case we're working on."

Laura smiled. "Well, that explains it then. Are you making any progress?"

"Some," Joe said. "So far it's just making things more confusing, though. Hopefully we'll know more after we talk to the guys and hear what they've found out."

"Whatever they have to say, they seem like they can't wait to say it," Laura told them. "They're downstairs in the guest room."

When Frank, Joe, and the girls reached the foot of the steps, they were surprised to be greeted by peals of laughter. They were even more surprised when they saw that Chet had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and seemed to be doing some sort of reenactment while the other boys were doubled up with laughter.

"I guess they're not too upset," Iola said.

"Maybe this means good news," Callie added hopefully.

"Hey, guys!" Joe spoke loudly, trying to get his voice heard over the roars of merriment. "We asked you over here to talk about a case, not put on a comedy routine."

"That's exactly what we're doing," Chet told him. "Since you guys weren't coming, we had to go ahead."

Biff wiped some tears from his eyes and tried to stifle his laughter long enough to say, "You Hardys need to take notes. Chet's methods for talking over a case are way better than what you guys usually do."

"Depends on your criteria for what makes it better," Frank commented.

"What's the joke, anyway?" Callie asked. "It must be pretty good."

"Oh, boy." Tony sighed. "You don't know the half of it." His lips twitched into a smirk, and he chuckled again, setting the other guys off into another round of laughter.

After several snorting, gasping half-chuckles as he tried to stop laughing long enough to talk, Chet said, "I was just reminding these guys of Clarissa's performance in last year's play. I think it's important to the case. Should I remind you guys?"

"You guys don't want to miss this," Jerry told them between chuckles.

"I can imagine." Joe grinned at the thought.

"Not to rain on your parade, but we've got more important things to talk over," Frank said. "What did you find out from Clarissa?"

The Hardys' friends burst into laughter once again. Finally, Tony managed to tell them, "She claims someone's trying to kill her over the play."

"I don't see what's so funny about that," Iola said.

"Aw, sis, it's ridiculous." Chet grinned. When he saw the serious expressions on the faces of his sister and friends, his smile faded a bit. "Isn't it?"

"Maybe not," Frank told him. "What exactly did she say?"

"She showed us these threatening notes that someone had supposedly sent her," Tony said. "She also had a list of 'accidents' that had happened to her. You should have seen it."

"What kinds of accidents?" Joe asked.

"All kinds." Tony shook his head. "Everything from tripping over her shoelaces to almost getting sideswiped by a car. Naturally, she didn't have a shred of evidence for any of it – not even an eyewitness. Besides –" His expression darkened. "The only accident she was almost in today, she was the cause of."

"What about the note?" Frank pressed.

"It was wild," Phil replied. "It said something like 'Great actresses die young'. If you ask me, after a message like that, she shouldn't be worried at all."

"Was it handwritten or printed from a computer?" Frank asked.

"Printed from a computer," Phil told him. "Why? You sound like you're taking this seriously."

"I think we all should," Frank said. "Julie McVera also got a message threatening her life, and someone came very close to killing Jason Reid."

At this sobering news, the other boys finally became serious. Biff sat up straighter in his corner of the sofa and put his feet down on the floor. Chet wadded the blanket up and held it in his lap as he sat down.

"Has Clarissa gone to the police?" Frank asked, after he had told the others what Julie and Jason's mother had said. "Jason's parents did, but Julie hasn't."

"She said she wanted to, but she couldn't," Tony told him. "She doesn't want her dad to know about it, and she can't talk to the police without them telling him."

Frank nodded. "I guess you didn't bring the note with you?"

Tony and Phil both shook their heads.

"We figured she was just trying to be dramatic and get attention," Tony admitted. "We didn't bother asking her for the note."

"Okay," Frank said. "Do you think you'd recognize the font it was in if you saw it again?"

"I wouldn't have to see it again to recognize it," Phil replied. "It was Comic Sans. Honestly, that was probably part of the reason why I didn't take it seriously. Who writes a threat in Comic Sans?"

"Not whoever sent Julie her threat," Joe said, guessing what his brother was getting at by asking about the font. "I couldn't tell you what font that one was in, but it was something more sophisticated than that."

"Century or Century Schoolbook, I'd say," Frank commented.

"It must be something to have mountains of useless knowledge like that piled up," Joe said.

"But what does it mean?" Iola asked. "Are you saying that the two notes weren't written by the same person?"

"It doesn't look like it," Frank said. "Or maybe whoever's behind it is just trying to confuse matters even more. Unfortunately, this doesn't give us any more of a lead than we already had."

"Well, you guys have had less of a lead than this and still managed to solve the mystery," Jerry pointed out optimistically.

"Of course, Frank and Joe can figure this out," Iola said.

Phil checked his phone screen for the time. "Hey, guys, working on mysteries is always fun, but I've got some homework to finish up before tomorrow and it's getting late. Maybe we better call it a night."

"Might as well," Frank agreed. "The only thing we can do right now is plan our next move, anyway. Tomorrow's Friday. That means once school is out, we'll be free all weekend to work on the case."

"At least those of us who don't do anything but solve mysteries will," Biff teased.

Joe rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. Frank and me, we have about the most boring lives ever."

HBHBHBHBHB

Nothing new had broken on the case by quarter after ten the next morning. Even so, Frank found himself going over every angle of the case again and again during class. Ordinarily, Frank wasn't the type of student to be distracted in his schoolwork – even when he was working on a case – but this particular class was a challenge to focus on for anyone.

It was history with Miss Darby. She was the dullest and the most hard-nosed teacher in the entire school. Because of this, one of the kids who thought he was cleverer than he really was had dubbed her Miss Drabby. The funniest part of that joke was how furious she would be if she ever found out, and that was the only reason why everyone in the class had begun calling her Miss Drabby behind her back.

Right now, she was lecturing about ancient Rome, and was somehow managing to make that dull. She was writing on the board and so her back was to the class. Half the class began to squirm more than they ever would have dared if she had been looking, and a few even made faces at each other.

In the midst of the silent commotion, Frank saw Evan Donahue look at his phone and frown. After a moment's hesitation, Evan raised his hand and said, "Miss Darby?"

The teacher whirled around and glared at him. "What is it?"

"Uh, my mom's calling," Evan explained. "She would never call me during school hours if it wasn't an emergency. Can I answer it? Please?"

Miss Darby narrowed her eyes, and Frank guessed that the answer to the request would be no.

Evan must have guessed the same thing because he added in a desperate, pleading voice, " _Please?_ "

"Oh, all right." Miss Darby sighed. "But you've only got two minutes."

Evan stood up and headed for the door of the classroom, answering the phone as he went. "Mom? Is – Mom, what happened? You – _WHAT!_ "

The last word was said so loudly and in such a tone of disbelief that everyone in the room turned to look. Evan's face paler than Frank had ever seen a living person's face become and he looked completely numb. For a moment, he stood there completely still. Then he shook himself and said, "I – I'll be right there."

He looked up at Miss Darby. "I – It – I've got to go."

"What happened?" Miss Darby asked. "You can't just leave in the middle of class."

Evan's eyes fell on Frank. "I – I can't drive myself. Would you drive me home, Frank?"

"Me?" The request surprised Frank so much that he could think of no more intelligent response than that. This was the only class he and Evan had together, and they barely spoke to each other. Frank didn't understand why Evan would ask him to drive him.

"Please," Evan said, his voice breaking and his eyes becoming watery. He swayed just a little.

Miss Darby must have decided that Evan was ill, because she immediately said, "Yes, Frank, go ahead and drive him home."

Frank followed Evan out of the classroom. "Do you have a car here?" he asked, but Evan was too dazed to reply.

After waiting a few moments for a response, Frank led him into the parking lot where he had left the car that he shared with Joe a few hours earlier. Evan climbed into the front passenger seat, or rather collapsed into it.

"Man, what happened?" Frank asked.

Evan just continued sitting, staring straight ahead with his mouth slightly open and his face as pale as ever.

"You're going to have to talk to me," Frank told him. "I don't know where you live."

Evan didn't turn or change expression in any way, except that his lips moved although no intelligible sound came out. His failure to communicate seemed to wake him up a bit and he finally said, "My – my mom – she said –"

As Evan allowed his voice to drift away, Frank bit his lip in impatience. He decided it would be better to just let Evan talk, though, provided he would, anyway.

The pause lasted only a few seconds because Evan continued, "She said – It can't be true. I – Frank, you've got to help."

"How?" Frank asked.

For the first time, Evan turned his head to look at Frank. "She said my dad's been murdered."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following the story! I would like to especially like everyone who has left reviews so far: Barb, max2013, BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, and TinDog. I really appreciate your support and your comments!_

Chapter VI

Saying it aloud that his father had been murdered seemed to clinch it for Evan. He broke down and began to sob.

Frank was too stunned to think of anything to say or do. He didn't know much about the Donahues, but that was because there had never seemed to be much to know. They were quiet people who had lived in Bayport since before Frank had been born. The idea of a murder in their family was a shock to Frank.

After a minute or two of silence, Frank said, "I'm so sorry, man."

Evan took several deep breaths, trying to get his tears in check. "Yeah. You've got to help, Frank."

"I'd be glad to, but what can I do?" Frank asked. "The police will find who did it. Maybe they already know."

"Maybe they think they already know." Evan swallowed hard.

"It's not like in the movies," Frank told him. "The cops aren't really a bunch of bumbling idiots. They won't arrest anyone without solid evidence – they can't. And even if they did, you can't get convicted without good evidence."

"You know it's not that simple." Evan wouldn't say another word of explanation.

That was the response Frank was expecting, but he had thought Evan would explain why he was concerned and who he was concerned about. When he didn't, Frank wasn't sure what else to say.

When another half minute had passed, Frank asked softly, "So where do you live?"

Evan gave the address shakily, and then there was no more conversation as Frank drove him to it.

A swarm of police cars surrounded the house, along with an ambulance and the coroner's vehicle. Frank had to park almost half a block away.

Even after Frank had turned the engine off, Evan simply sat in the passenger seat, picking at a fingernail. Frank refrained from asking him if he was all right, knowing that that was a silly question. Finally, Evan reached for the handle of the door and opened it.

Frank followed him down the sidewalk until they were in front of the house. Immediately, they were descended upon by Detective Lieutenant Olaf, who held the Hardys in no esteem.

"Evan Donahue?" he asked abruptly, not giving Frank more than a glance.

Evan nodded wordlessly.

"Good," Olaf said. "Then we won't have to hunt you down. I've got some questions for you."

"Hey," Frank broke in. "Take it easy on him. This is about as tough as it gets."

"What are you doing here, anyway, Hardy?" Olaf raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"I just gave him a ride home from school," Frank told him.

"Then I've got some questions for you, too," Olaf said. "First, I need you both to come in the house and take a look at this."

"Uh, are you sure that's a good idea?" Frank replied.

Evan interrupted their discussion by saying suddenly, "Is – is it true?"

"You tell me," Olaf responded enigmatically.

He grabbed Evan by the elbow and steered him into the house with Frank following behind. The first room they came to was a living room and very obviously the scene of the murder. To Frank's relief, the body had already been removed and only the police tape showed that it had lain on the couch.

Nevertheless, it was a gruesome scene. The carpet was white and the bloodstains in it made a stark contrast. What was even more shocking was a message scrawled with a black marker on the wall:

 _Duncan_

 _I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?*_

"What do you know about that?" Olaf asked, pointing at the words.

Evan was speechless for a few moments, but then he finally managed to say in a voiceless tone, "It's _Macbeth._ From right after Macbeth murders Duncan."

"Hmm," Olaf replied. "And what do you make of it?"

"What do _you_ make of it?" Frank countered. "Aren't you supposed to investigate rather than Evan?"

Olaf scowled at him. "That's what I'm doing. But I'll tell you what I make of it all the same. Obviously, the murderer is familiar with Shakespeare. He or she has a flair for the dramatic, but not the overly gruesome. After all, they wrote the message with a marker rather than blood. That it was someone who hated Brian Donahue goes without saying. There's only one person who fits that description, and he just gave himself away by identifying the line."

"What?" Frank shook his head, wondering if he had heard the detective correctly.

Evan's already pale face drained still more of color and he swayed for a moment before collapsing to his knees, too dazed and surprised to even respond to the accusation.

"That's ridiculous," Frank finally managed to say. "Look at him. Does he _look_ like he could have done it?"

Olaf scoffed. "I thought you were something of a detective, Hardy. Enough of one to know that looks have nothing to do with whether a person is guilty or not, anyway. Besides, I've found out that he's part of the drama club at school. He's acting."

"But – Evan's been in school all morning," Frank protested.

"It makes for the perfect alibi." Olaf shrugged. "But it wouldn't keep him from hiring an assassin."

Evan looked physically sick. "This – I – Where's Mom?"

"The hospital," Olaf said. "She was pretty shook up after finding the body, and she had every right to be. We couldn't get any sort of statement from her, so we sent her in to have a doctor look over her. As for you, I don't have enough evidence to arrest you yet, but I am going to need your side of the story, and your friend's, too."

"Don't say a word, Evan," Frank cautioned him. "Not until you've talked to a lawyer."

"As I said, you're not under arrest yet," Olaf reminded Evan. "If you can clear yourself, you won't ever be."

"Not a word," Frank repeated. "Even though you're innocent, you might accidentally say the wrong thing. I'll call my dad."

"Not until you've given your statement, at any rate," Olaf said. He pointed at one of the other officers in the room. "Keep an eye on the Donahue kid while I talk to Hardy."

He led Frank, who only followed unwillingly, into the kitchen and told him to sit down at the table. Olaf himself sat across from him and turned on a recorder.

"State your name for the record," he requested.

"Francis Hardy," Frank replied.

"How do you know Evan Donahue?" Olaf asked.

"He's in one of my classes at school," Frank told him. "I don't actually know him that well."

"Then why did he ask you to drive him home instead of one of his friends?"

"I don't know."

"When did you first learn than Brian Donahue had been murdered?"

"Evan's mom called him in the middle of class. As soon as he had hung up, he asked the teacher if he could leave and he asked me to drive him home."

"How did Evan Donahue react to the news that his father had been murdered?"

"He was shocked more than anything."

"Could he have been acting?"

"I don't think so. He was pale and faint."

"Did he do or say anything that was suspicious?"

"No." Even as he said it, he recalled something that Evan had said that had been a little strange. One of his chief worries had seemed to be that the police would arrest the wrong person. Did he know more than he was letting on?

Frank didn't mention this to Olaf. He was positive that Olaf's accusations were ridiculous, and most likely Evan's worries had been the result of the shock. After all, Frank knew through first-hand experience that danger, shock, and surprise can make the most bizarre thoughts seem vitally important.

Frank gave little more information throughout the rest of the interview. Finally, when he got the chance to pose a question, he asked, "Detective Olaf, how could Evan have hired an assassin? That takes more money than most high school kids have lying around. And besides that, why would he want his own father murdered?"

Olaf smiled a little, evidently pleased that he knew something more about this case than one of the great Hardy Boys did. "Both questions have the same answer. We've been keeping an eye on Brian Donahue for some time now, since we suspected that he has some ties to organized crime. We've also found evidence that he has a large sum of dirty money stashed away. Evan was known to hate his father, all the more because Brian wouldn't spend any of his money on his son. Evan must have stole some of the money, used it to hire and assassin, and had the guy stab Brian Donahue while he was taking a midmorning nap."

"If Donahue was involved in organized crime, isn't it just possible the murder had to do with that?" Frank asked.

"Well, yeah, it's possible, but not likely," Olaf admitted. "That's why we can't arrest Evan yet, since we've got other suspects to look into. It was young Donahue, though. I'm positive."

Frank shook his head in disgust. "Do you mind if I call my dad now and have him arrange to get a lawyer here to Evan?"

"Go ahead." Olaf's consent was given grudgingly.

Frank called Fenton's number and quickly filled his father in on the events of the morning. Fenton listened with interested seriousness and then promised to contact a lawyer immediately.

During the conversation, one of the police detectives came into the room and said, "Lieutenant?"

"Yeah? What is it?" Olaf asked.

"We've had another development in the case," the detective said. "We've just had a report of two more DBs only six blocks away on Thirteenth."

"How's that related to this case?" Olaf questioned.

"Hold on just a second, Dad," Frank said into the phone, turning his full attention on the conversation between the two police officers.

"They were both stabbed to death, so there was a lot of blood, naturally," the detective was saying. "But the blood on their hands and faces looked drier than the rest, like it was there before they were murdered. Also, one had a bloody dagger with him and the other had this address in his pocket."

"What the –" Olaf shook his head, not seeming to be able to understand how all of this was fitting together.

"Have they been identified?" Frank asked.

"No," the detective told him. "They're both male and we've got a general description, but no ID as of yet."

Olaf stood up and ran his hand threw his hair in frustration. "This just doesn't add up," he muttered.

The detective cleared his throat. "There's another thing, Lieutenant."

"What?" Olaf snapped.

"There was a sheet of paper pinned to one of the bodies' shirt," the detective explained. "It had a message written in black marker on it."

"Like the message here?" Olaf asked.

"Mmhmm." The detective punctuated his affirmation with a nod. "The exact same type of message, but different words."

"What did this one say?" Olaf's tone was impatient.

Frank, too, leaned forward in anticipation of what the officer was about to reveal.

"It had two lines to it, just like this other one," the detective said. "The top line said, 'The Sentries'. And the second line said, 'O, yet I do repent me of my fury, / That I did kill them.' There was a slash between 'fury' and 'that'."

"Did you check on the quotation?" Even while Olaf was asking the question, the detective began to nod. "Let me guess," Olaf went on, " _Macbeth._ "

"Yep," the detective replied. "It comes right after he kills two sentries that he had framed for the murder of Duncan."


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone reading and following! Your support is awesome. I'd especially like to thank BMSH, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, Cherylann Rivers, Barb, and TinDog for your reviews so far. I love hearing what you think of the story and your guesses about what's going to happen next._

Chapter VII

"It must have been awful for you, Frank," Laura Hardy said with a shudder as she listened to Frank describe everything that had happened that morning at the supper table.

Frank shook his head. "I don't get why Olaf's so convinced that Evan is guilty. I mean, it's ridiculous for one thing, and it's the last thing the poor kid needs right now for another."

"It's just 'cause Olaf doesn't have a clue how to solve a mystery," Joe replied. "No pun intended."

"Yeah, right," Frank responded. "About the pun, anyway."

"This is hardly something to joke about," Aunt Gertrude reprimanded them. "Well, Fenton? Are you going to investigate this case? Surely you're not going to let a high schooler stand trial for murder."

"That's right, Dad," Frank said. "Evan's eighteen. He'll be tried as an adult."

"I doubt it will come to that," Fenton assured him. "Olaf doesn't have a shred of real evidence to incriminate Evan, and the other two bodies complicate the matter."

"Sure does," Joe agreed. "They must have been murdered by the same guy, what with those messages. The murderer must be a Shakespeare freak. I'll have to bring it up to my literature teacher what reading this stuff does to a person."

"I doubt being a 'Shakespeare freak' is the motive for the murders," Fenton mused. "Still, it could have something to do with it. I haven't read _Macbeth_ since high school. Of course, I can't take the case unless I'm hired, but I think I'll spend some time this evening looking through the play anyway."

"It's funny," Joe said absently.

Laura smiled just a little. "That's the first time I've ever heard _Macbeth_ described as funny."

"Not that," Joe replied. "It's just funny that _Macbeth_ is popping up all over the place now."

"You mean the supposed curse?" Frank asked. "How could that have anything to do with it? You were the one to mention the name of the play."

Joe rolled his eyes. "Don't I know it. Everyone at school's been reminding me of it all day. Someone – meaning Clarissa Margot – submitted a story about it to the school newspaper, with the headline 'Joe Hardy Causes School Play to be Cursed'."

Frank grinned. "Aw, I must have missed that, leaving school in the middle of the morning. It's probably a great story."

"Ha, ha, ha," Joe replied dryly. "What I don't get is how Clarissa found out about it. She wasn't anywhere near me when that happened. The only ones who were were Callie and Evan Donahue, who brought the whole thing up in the first place." Joe's voice trailed off thoughtfully.

"That's interesting," Fenton said. "It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but on the other hand, it could mean that Evan actually does know something about what's going on. It at least means that he had the topic of _Macbeth_ on his mind."

"Well, I suppose it could be," Joe admitted, "except for one thing. Olaf suspects Evan, and that'd be a point in anyone's favor."

"Dad, Olaf said that Mr. Donahue had ties to organized crime." Frank took the conversation in a slightly different turn. "Do you know anything about that?"

"No," Fenton replied. "I'd never heard anything about it. Of course, it's not impossible. I'll look into it."

"If it's true," Frank continued, "then he probably was killed by someone else in the organization. Who and why, we still don't know, but at least it would mean that it wasn't Evan."

Fenton nodded. "It will also help when we find out who the other two murder victims were."

"You know," Joe said thoughtfully, "I bet whoever did it is modeling his crimes off of _Macbeth_. He's casting his murder victims as people who got murdered in the play. Duncan was the first, and then the two sentries."

"When were you reading _Macbeth_?" Frank asked.

"I didn't," Joe replied. "My lit teacher last year made us watch an ancient movie of it with Orson Welles, though."

"If Joe's right, I hope this murderer doesn't follow through the rest of the story," Laura said. "If he does, there'll be even more murders."

"Maybe we can figure out who's next, though," Joe suggested. "I don't remember who got murdered next in the play."

"Let's find out," Frank said.

In excitement, they left the dinner table in a hurry and ran to the family room. Frank opened his laptop and a quick Internet search yielded the full text of the play. The brothers began to skim read through it.

"Whew!" Joe sighed after a few minutes. "This is tough stuff to read, especially when you're skipping every other line."

"Hold on," Frank said. "Here's the part where Duncan gets murdered."

They read that scene and the scenes following it carefully. When they got to part where the sentries were murdered, Frank whistled softly.

"What is it?" Joe asked.

"Mr. Donahue was murdered in the exact same way as Duncan," Frank explained. "Stabbed to death while he was asleep. In the play, Macbeth framed the sentries by smearing Duncan's blood on them and their weapons before he killed them. The two guys who were killed today had blood on their hands and faces that was dried more than the rest of the blood."

"And I'll bet police forensics will find that the dried blood belonged to Brian Donahue," Joe added. "Well, I guess we'll have to forget about the cursed play. We've got to track down someone who thinks he's Macbeth."

They skimmed through until they came to the next murder – that of Banquo, along with the attempted murder of Banquo's son, Fleance.

Frank scratched his head. "This isn't particularly helpful. There's no telling who this guy might decide Banquo is."

"Well, it's something," Joe said. "Are we going to have to tell Olaf?"

Frank hesitated. He certainly didn't want to have to talk to Detective Olaf again. "I doubt he'd listen anyway. But we'll ask Dad."

In the distance, they heard the doorbell ring and their mother's steps as she went to answer it.

"Olaf will probably try to say that this clinches it that Evan did it," Joe commented. "After all, Evan's a theater person."

"Hi, guys." A feminine voice made them both look up to see Iola standing in the doorway. Her expression was less cheery than usual as she asked, "Are you trying to solve the murder?"

"Murders," Joe corrected her. "There's been three of them. All the same MO."

"How awful." Iola sat down in one of the chairs. "The whole thing has everyone so upset that Julie called the play off. I talked her into only calling it off indefinitely, but still. How's Evan doing?"

"Not good," Frank told her.

"There's a rumor going around that he did it," Iola said. "It's just stupid. I've gotten to know Evan pretty well being in the drama club with him, and I know he wouldn't do something like this. Sure, he can be kind of rude and he doesn't talk about his family at all, but that hardly makes him a murderer. And besides – who else got murdered?"

"We don't know yet," Joe replied. "The police are still trying to ID the bodies."

Iola shuddered. "If nobody knows who those guys are, Evan wouldn't have any reason to kill them."

"Unless, of course, _he_ knows who they are," Joe said.

Taking a deep breath, Iola had a serious expression on her face. "I want to help you guys. We've got to clear Evan. Do – do you think this has anything to do with what's been going on with the play? After all, someone threatened both Julie and Clarissa and very nearly killed Jason."

"If that's the case, then it blows my theory to pieces," Joe replied. "You've got a good point, though."  
"Maybe, but Joe's theory fits so perfectly to the murders," Frank said.

"What theory?" Iola asked.

Frank and Joe explained, while Iola nodded thoughtfully.

"Then it's just a coincidence that both of them have to do with _Macbeth_?" she concluded when they had finished.

Frank shrugged and shook his head. "Who knows? The only way to find out is to solve one case or the other. Honestly, there's not a whole lot we can do on the murder case that the police can't do just as well. Let's work on the play."

"How do we do that?" Iola asked.

"Let's try talking to some of the other people involved in the play," Frank suggested. "Maybe some of them have been having trouble, too."

"Let's get started on it right now," Joe said.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was past nine and pitch dark by the time Frank and Joe dropped Iola off at her house. They had spent the last couple of hours talking to Kayla Martinez, one of the co-writers of the play, Chris Havens, the producer, and Lily and Paul Leeder, who were two of the actors. None of them had had anything mysterious happen to them.

Chet met them at the door. "Hey, why didn't you guys invite me along on your sleuthing?"

"I didn't think you liked tracking down either murderers or would-be murderers," Iola teased him.

"Well, not _always_ ," Chet replied. "But this time I could have been a real help."

"How so?" Joe asked suspiciously.

"I found someone with a really good motive to kill Mr. Donahue," Chet told them.

"Who?" all three members of his audience demanded in anticipation.

Chet squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height proudly. "It just so happens that there's somebody who hated Mr. Donahue's guts and, as Tony and Phil would agree, is just nasty enough to do something like this."

"Come on, Chet, just tell us already," Joe said.

"Simeon Margot," Chet replied without further stalling. "Clarissa's dad. Well, her stepdad, actually. Her real dad's dead and Old Man Margot adopted her when he married –"

"What did you say about how Mr. Margot and Mr. Donahue got along?" Joe asked thoughtfully.

"They didn't," Chet told him.

"No, your exact words," Joe said.

"Uh, I said that Mr. Margot hated Mr. Donahue's guts," Chet replied. "Why?"

"I heard someone say those exact words just the other day," Joe told him. "I can't quite remember where, though, or who said them."

Chet shrugged. "I can't help you there."

"This just might be a lead," Frank said. "Let's call on the Margots first thing in the morning."

HBHBHBHBHB

Even after Frank went to bed, he had a hard time getting to sleep. Too many thoughts kept running through his head. Most of all, the thought that he had to help Evan would not relent.

By one o'clock, he decided that trying to sleep was a waste of time that he could be using in doing some research. He crawled out of bed and opened his laptop again, intending to resume reading _Macbeth_. It didn't take him long to realize, though, that trying to understand Shakespeare in the middle of the night with a lot already on his mind was a fruitless task.

Instead, he pulled up a search engine and began searching for possible connections between Donahue and organized crime. He found nothing, not even rumors. Shaking his head, he muttered under his breath, "What was Olaf talking about?"

Recalling Chet's tip, he typed Simeon Margot's name into the search engine. After scrolling through the pages of results, he found several news articles from a few years ago that told him something he was already vaguely aware of, namely that Margot's wife had died in an accident.

Farther on, he found something that made him stop and blink and which immediately moved Margot to the top of the suspect list.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone reading and following! A very big thank you to everyone who has left reviews on the previous chapters: max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, Barb, and TinDog. Your support is very much so appreciated!_

Chapter VIII

Joe hadn't slept well the night before. By six o'clock in the morning, he was down in the kitchen making an omelet. He had only just put the pan on the stove when Laura came into the room, wearing a bathrobe over her pajamas.

"Joe, what are you doing up this early on a Saturday?" she asked.

"Couldn't sleep," Joe replied. "Besides, I have to go back to school on Monday, so that doesn't leave much time to work on these mysteries."

Laura sighed and sat down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. "I suppose two days to solve two mysteries isn't much, even for you and Frank. Joe, I know there's no point in trying to talk you out of a mystery –"

"Mom." Joe looked at her with widened eyes that showed how taken aback he was. "I thought you'd given up trying to talk Frank and me out of our mysteries. Don't you trust us?"

"Of course," Laura assured him. "It's just – This is a murder case. No one's brought up this possibility yet, but it could even be a serial killer. Whoever it is, though, and whatever their motive is, they'll be dangerous if they're backed into a corner. Why can't you let the police handle it just this once?"

"Well, for starters because Olaf doesn't even know which end of a magnifying glass to hold," Joe replied, "and also because Evan's a friend of Iola's and I don't want to let her down."

Laura smiled, but it was a bittersweet smile. "You think a lot of Iola, don't you?"

Joe blushed ever so slightly. "Yeah, well, she's a great girl. And a really good friend."

"I know," Laura said. "And I'm sure you'd do anything for her."

Her tone told Joe that she wasn't necessarily thinking about Iola and he was puzzled what she was actually getting at. "Mom, is something up?"

"Joe." Laura's tone was very serious. "I know mysteries are just about the most important thing in the world to you and that you feel like you have to work on this one for Evan to be cleared, but I don't want you to work on it."

"Mom." Joe could hardly believe his ears. His mother often expressed concern for her sons when they were working on a case, but it had been a long time since she had outright told them to stop.

"I don't know," Laura said, a catch in her voice. "There's just something about this case. It gives me a feeling – It reminds me of –"

"Of what?" Joe asked when she stopped talking.

Laura bit her lip and didn't reply at once. "Of a case that your dad had a long time ago. I don't know what it is. Just a feeling, I guess. Promise me you'll be careful."

"Of course, Mom." Joe gave her a hug. He wondered what had happened on that case of his dad's that Laura was still so upset about it, but he didn't ask. He knew that if his mother wanted to tell him about it, she would.

A few minutes later, Frank wandered into the kitchen, fully dressed. "Morning. What are you guys doing up so early?"

"Couldn't sleep," Joe replied. "What's your excuse?"

"The same," Frank told him. "Too bad I didn't realize you were awake. I've been dying to tell you what I found out last night."

Joe cast a glance at Laura, who sighed softly but nodded. With an eager grin, Joe said, "Don't keep us waiting!"

"After what Chet said yesterday about Simeon Margot, I was doing some research on him last night," Frank explained. "Almost twenty-five years ago, just after he got out of college, he was tried for complicity in a con game."

"Interesting," Joe said. "Was he found guilty?"

"No," Frank told him. "He was acquitted on a legal technicality. That's not the most interesting thing, though. One of the news articles had a picture of him coming out of the courthouse. I printed it out."

He handed the print to Joe and both he and Laura studied it. It showed a much younger Simeon Margot shaking hands with a man who seemed vaguely familiar.

"Hey, haven't I seen that other guy's picture somewhere before?" Joe asked.

"I should say so," Frank said. "That's Devin Matthias. Seven, eight years after this picture was taken, he was convicted of complicity with crimes committed by the Irish Mob."

"Hmm," Joe mused. "But I thought –"

"Look who's standing right next to Matthias," Frank interrupted.

Joe looked closely at the image. "Brian Donahue?"

"It looks like him," Frank said. "I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I think we need to look into it."

"I'll make you and me breakfast, Frank," Laura offered, though her usual cheerfulness was missing from her voice. "Joe beat me to it for his, but it doesn't look like he made enough for all of us."

As she took more eggs out of the refrigerator, Frank shot Joe a questioning look. All Joe could do in response was to give a bewildered shrug.

HBHBHBHBHB

Frank and Joe were in their car, backing out of the driveway with Joe at the wheel, by a quarter to seven.

"Where are we going first?" Joe asked. "It is a little early to call on anybody."  
"Um," Frank said, making it more into a sigh than a word. "How about we stop off at the police headquarters? Collig is always there early and Olaf is not. Maybe we get some more information."

"Good thinking," Joe agreed and turned on the signal to turn left toward the police station.

"What was up with Mom this morning?" Frank asked after a brief pause. "She didn't seem quite herself."

"Beats me," Joe replied. "She said she wants us to give up the case, but then she just made me promise to be careful. She said something about it reminds her of a case that Dad had a long time ago. That's all she told me."

"Weird," Frank mused. "I know Mom worries about us sometimes, but not that much. Maybe Dad can explain."

There was practically no traffic this early in the morning, and so they arrived at the police station before seven. A tired-looking officer whom the boys knew to be named Walt Farnham was at the front desk with a coffee mug in his hand.

"Frank and Joe." He nodded at them in greeting. "What brings you over here so early?"

"Really, Walt, do you have to ask?" Joe replied. "Can't you guess?"

"Too early in the morning for guessing," Farnham said. "Oh, is this about the Donahue case?"

"Is the chief in yet?" Frank asked. "We'd like to talk to him."

"He just got in five minutes ago," Farnham told him. "Go ahead and go on in. I'm sure he'll talk to you."

Frank and Joe went down the short hallway to Chief Collig's office and knocked on the glass door. Collig, who was seated at his desk, looked up and gestured for them to come in.

"Let me guess – the Donahue case," he greeted them.

Joe sat down in the chair on the other side of Collig's desk and Frank pulled another one closer.

"Right," Frank said. "We were wondering if you'd be opposed to some help on it."

Collig grinned. "Officially, you know I have to be. Unofficially, though, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts."

"Well, we do have some theories," Joe replied. "But they don't quite add up a hundred percent. We were wondering if your guys had figured anything more out yet."

"A few things," Collig said. "You go first and tell me your theories."

Frank and Joe glanced at each other, but then they began taking turns explaining the similarities of the murders to the murders in _Macbeth_ , as well as the possible connection to the school play.

Collig listened attentively to everything. When they had finished, he took a few moments to reflect on it in silence. Then he said, "I don't know about the school play. That seems a little farfetched. The _Macbeth_ idea, though, fits more perfectly than you boys know."

"How so?" Joe asked eagerly.

"The other two victims have been identified as Greg Kelly and Hunter Pierce," Collig told them. "Other than that, we still don't know anything about them. We haven't even managed to contact their families yet. However, forensics found out a few things about their murders. First off, the blood on the dagger that one of them was evidently carrying and the dried blood on their hands and faces match the Brian Donahue's blood type. Secondly, they weren't stabbed to death in the traditional sense of the word."

"What other sense of the word is there?" Joe asked.

Collig rubbed his eyes in frustration. "They appear to have been killed with a sword."

"Sufferin' snakes!" Joe said.

Frank cast him an annoyed glance and shook his head. "That's not half as funny as you think it is, Joe." Looking back at the chief, he said in a more serious tone, "A sword? Why would someone use a sword?"

"Your _Macbeth_ theory fits with it," Collig replied. "Donahue was stabbed to death while he was asleep, which is what happened to Duncan in the play. Kelly and Pierce were killed shortly thereafter with a sword after having had the first victim's blood smeared on them, which is what happened to the sentries."

"How did you just know that?" Joe asked.

"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard not to see the similarities here," Collig said.

"Oh, so we didn't actually bring up anything you hadn't thought of before," Joe replied with some dejection in his voice.

"Maybe not just yet, but we've got some other leads that might be something," Frank said.

"Care to tell me what they are?" Collig asked.

"We don't have enough to back them up for it to mean too much," Frank told him, "but you'll be the first to know if anything comes of them.

"Fair enough," Collig replied. "I mean, if it was anyone else, I'd have to insist that they tell me, but – unofficially, of course – I know you guys can handle it. In fact, I trust you guys with it more than I do –" He coughed. "- certain members of my police force."

"About Olaf," Frank said. It was obvious who the chief was referring to. "Is he still trying to prove that Evan Donahue is responsible for killing his own father?"

Collig rolled his eyes. "Probably. I told him yesterday in no uncertain terms to give that whole idea up, but knowing him it will only make him all the more determined."

"Why don't you fire that guy?" Joe asked. "Or at least demote him?"

Collig shrugged. "It's complicated. Let's just chalk it up to Olaf knows all the right people." He looked up and saw the detective himself hurrying toward his office. "Speak of the devil."

"Chief." Olaf burst in without bothering to knock. "We've just had a break. Well, more of a development than a break. It is a break, though, 'cause now we know who killed Donahue, but it doesn't help too much, in view of the circumstances. On the other hand –"

"Olaf," Chief Collig interrupted, "what are you talking about? You found out who killed Donahue?"

Olaf nodded smugly. "I sure did. Although, to be honest, it was less great detective work and more that the perp practically convicted himself."

Joe gave Frank a puzzled glance. If Olaf had really solved a crime, that in itself was more of a mystery than anything else the Hardys had ever encountered.

"Who is it?" Frank asked.

"Evan Donahue," Olaf said, his pride showing in both tone and posture.

With a disgusted groan, Joe threw his head back. "And what makes you say that?"

"The fact that Evan Donahue has skipped town without a trace."


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's Note: Thank you all so, so much for reading and following this story! It means a lot to me. Thank you especially to Barb, EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, max2013, BMSH, and TinDog for all of you reviews so far!_

Chapter IX 

Joe whistled as he and Frank climbed back into their car. "Why the heck would Evan do something dumb like this? He can't be guilty."

Frank stared out the window into the distance thoughtfully. The news that Evan Donahue had disappeared was disturbing, since flight was often a sign of guilt. Of course, Evan could have run and still been innocent. After all, he had been through a lot and was undoubtedly terrified that he would be arrested.

Still, would he do something like that? And without even telling his mother? She had been the first person the police had gone to, and she had evidently been practically in hysterics but unable to tell them anything about her son's whereabouts.

Then a thought came to Frank's head. "Maybe Evan didn't leave on his own."

"You mean, he was kidnapped? Or maybe even killed himself?" Joe scratched his head. "I guess it could be, but why? If the _Macbeth_ pattern is what's happening here, the next person to get killed is supposed to be Banquo, and Banquo's an adult dude with a kid. Evan doesn't strike me as being a likely person to get cast in that role."

"True," Frank said, "but Banquo's murder isn't immediately the next thing to happen. Before that, Duncan's sons flee the kingdom, and as a result get accused of the murder."

Joe snapped his fingers. "Makes sense. Whoever's behind this would make Evan disappear to keep following the story. I sure hope they didn't kill him."

"No kidding," Frank replied, "but that's not all. If this is another crime by –"

"Macbeth," Joe interjected. "It's faster than saying 'whoever's behind this' or 'the perpetrator' or whatever all the time."  
"Okay," Frank continued. "Well, if this is another crime by Macbeth, then there should be another message. If we can find that message, it will go a long way to proving that Evan didn't go of his own free will."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Joe asked. "Let's go find it."

They had learned that Evan had been supposed to spend the night with an aunt and uncle. Frank found the address without difficulty in an online phone directory, and Joe drove there, pushing the speed limit a little in his eagerness.

To their disappointment, they found two police cars parked in front when they arrived there. Joe slumped back in the driver's seat and let his wrists rest on the steering wheel.

"Macbeth's not hiding these messages," he commented. "If it's there, the police would have already found it."

Frank nodded. "It must be somewhere else. Maybe the exact place where Evan got taken from."

"That's assuming he was somewhere else at the time," Joe mused. "Let's go in and ask his aunt and uncle if that's the case. I mean, Olaf's not here, and most of the other cops in town don't mind us investigating."

Frank agreed and they went to the door and rang the bell. Instead of one of Evan's relatives, it was answered by Con Riley, one of the Bayport Police Department officers. Of everyone on the police force, they were probably on the friendliest terms with Con, except for possibly Chief Collig.

"Well, it wouldn't be a Bayport mystery without you two showing up," he said good-naturedly. "You wouldn't happen to be coming to tell us that you know exactly where Evan Donahue is, would you?"  
"Sorry," Frank replied. "We don't have anything yet. We do think that maybe Evan's as much a victim of these crimes as his dad and the other two guys. By any chance, did you find another message like those other ones here?"

Con shook his head. "No. What makes you think that?"

"Was Evan kidnapped from the house here, or did he go somewhere else last night?" Frank asked, purposely not answering Con's question. Sometimes it was best not to talk too much, even to someone he could trust.

"As a matter of fact, he was," Con replied. "His aunt and uncle say that he went to visit a friend, but they don't know who."

"Wasn't he being watched?" Joe raised an eyebrow.

"He would have been if Lieutenant Olaf had had his way." Con grimaced. "It pains me to say it, but since the chief prohibited Olaf from bothering Evan, that allowed him to either escape or – whatever you think happened to him."

HBHBHBHBHB

Fifteen minutes later, Joe was driving aimlessly through one of the residential districts of Bayport. He and Frank were both quiet as they tried to plan out their next move.

"There's still the Margots to call on," Joe commented.

Frank nodded absently. "There are so many different directions we could go on this case that it's hard to decide which one is best."

"Whichever one we can move on the fastest," Joe replied. "We don't know where to look for the message, so let's go and talk to Clarissa."

"Okay," Frank agreed. "I've been thinking about that, though, and we can't just barge in and start asking questions about Mr. Margot being involved in the Irish Mob, even to Clarissa. I know she doesn't seem to like him much, but she might be defensive all the same."

"So you're saying that we should find some other excuse to go talk to her." Joe rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Tony and Phil already used the old reporter story."

"She knows we're not reporters and that we are detectives," Frank pointed out. "Let's just go on the pretense that we just want to ask her about Evan. Honestly, that is our main reason for wanting to solve this mystery. It might lead her to talking about any connection between her stepfather and Mr. Donahue."

"Sounds like a plan," Joe agreed as he made a left turn that would take them toward the Margot home.

HBHBHBHBHB

Clarissa Margot raised her eyebrows suspiciously when she opened her front door to see that it was the Hardys who had rung the bell.

"Spare me the suspense. This could be about any of several things," she said abruptly. "Which is it? The article in the school paper? The curse in general? Or do you suspect _me_ of killing old Donahue?"

"Uh, it's mostly about the Donahue case, I guess," Joe replied. "We've got quite a few questions. Can we come in?"

Clarissa shrugged carelessly. "Whatever." She stood aside so they could enter. With a lazy gesture, she pointed out some chairs and then sat down in one herself.

Frank and Joe followed suit, although Clarissa's manner made them a bit uncomfortable.

"So you've heard about Mr. Donahue?" Frank began.

Clarissa snorted. "Who hasn't? The whole school was buzzing about it yesterday."

"She's got you there, Frank," Joe said.

Frank wrinkled his brow. "But how? Evan didn't say what had happened until after he was in the car. Who told everyone at school?"

"Search me," Clarissa said. "The rumor was already going full force by the time I heard it."

"Well, we'll sort that out later," Frank replied. "Have you heard about Evan?"

"Or, better yet, _from_ Evan?" Joe added.

"Pfft, as if." Clarissa made a motion as if she was brushing them aside. "Evan and I aren't exactly friends."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't heard what's happened to him," Frank pointed out.

For a moment, a confused look flashed across Clarissa's face. "Has something happened to him besides his dad getting murdered?"

"Just a few things," Joe said dryly. "He just got accused of the murder and –"

"What!" Clarissa interrupted. "You're kidding, aren't you? I mean, I've always said the Bayport PD was a bunch of incompetent baboons, but accusing a kid of killing his own father?"

"Well –" Joe tried again, but again he was interrupted.

"On the other hand, if Evan did do it, maybe he's not as lame as I always thought. I guess, I never gave him the time of day since I figured he was all for what his dad was all about, and any friend of Simeon's is an enemy of mine."

"Simeon's?" Joe repeated. "You mean your dad?"

"Dad, stepdad, they've all been the same," Clarissa replied. "Bunch of losers, all of them. Of course, I would get stuck with the worst of the lot."

"Did you mean that Brian Donahue was a friend of your stepdad?" Frank asked.

Clarissa opened her mouth in alarm and then shut it again firmly. "Yeah, sort of. I don't know anything about it, though. I stay away from Simeon and his friends. Now if you don't mind, you guys have already caused me enough trouble, what with Joe causing the whole play to get called off."

She stood up and went to the door, opening it and making it clear that the interview was at an end. Frank and Joe exchanged glances, but there was nothing else they could do. They left the Margot home knowing little more than they had when they entered it.

"That's weird," Joe said as he pressed the unlock button on the key fob. "I thought Donahue and Margot hated each other."

"I hadn't necessarily heard that until you told me," Frank replied. "Who told you?"

"Like I said before, I don't remember." Joe shook his head. "It was such an off-hand comment, I didn't think anything of it at the time. I'll think of it, though."

He was just putting the car in drive to pull away from the Margot home when his phone rang. Putting the car back in park, he looked at the screen to see that it was Iola calling. He felt a bit uncomfortable taking this particular call with Frank right there, but he also couldn't ignore it.

Turning away from his brother slightly, Joe held the phone up to his ear. "Hey, Iola. What's up?"

"That's what I wanted to know," Iola replied. "Chet and Tony and I are at your house and we wanted to find out what the latest was on the mystery. But then you and Frank aren't around. I've got to tell you, I was pretty disappointed."

Joe's heart stopped for a moment, wondering whether it was just a casual, teasing remark like Iola might make to Frank or Biff, or if she meant something more by it.

"Joe?" Iola asked. "Are you still there?"

"Um, yeah, I'm here," Joe replied. "Uh, we haven't really found out anything, but there has been – Well, uh, Evan's missing and no one knows where he is."

"That's terrible," Iola said. "Do you think he ran away? Why would he do something like that?"

"I don't know," Joe told her. "How about we meet up with you guys and we can talk about this more? Maybe you can think of something that Frank and I missed."

"I doubt I could do that," Iola replied, "but it would be fun to try."

"Okay, then I'll – we'll see you in a few minutes." Joe hung up the phone and explained to Frank, who was glad to have their friends' help or at least support on the case.

Tony, Chet, and Iola were waiting on the Hardys' front porch when Joe pulled the car into the driveway.

"Hey, guys!" Chet called to them. "What took you so long? You said you'd be here in a few minutes. It's been more like ten."

"'A few' isn't a set number," Frank reminded him.

"Frank? Joe?" Laura came out on the porch with an envelope in her hand. "I found this on the porch half an hour ago."

Her face was serious, and she certainly had every right to be. Mysteriously delivered letters in the Hardy home were nearly always a cause for concern.

Frank took the envelope from her and studied it. The words "Hardy Boys" were written on the front with a black marker in a handwriting that seemed oddly familiar.

"Joe." He handed the envelope to his brother.

Joe only had to take one look at it before he said, "What the –"

He resisted the urge to tear the envelope open and instead opened it carefully. Inside was a candid photo of Evan on the school campus with a message in black marker scrawled on it:

 _Malcolm and Donalbain_

 _Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them_

 _Suspicion of the deed._


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, Barb, BMSH, and TinDog for all your reviews so far. Your feedback is always helpful and appreciated and your guesses are fun to read!_

 _I've realized that this story is probably kind of tough to follow if you're not familiar with_ Macbeth _. I'll give a brief summary here that'll hit all the high points that you need to know (spoiler alert, if you're concerned about that! :)_ _). Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth conspire to take over Scotland after three witches tell Macbeth that it is his destiny to be king. They murder the king, Duncan, and frame the crime on two sentries who Macbeth also kills. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee the country, making it easy for Macbeth to accuse them of paying the sentries off. The witches also predicted that Macbeth's friend Banquo's descendants would become kings, so Macbeth has Banquo murdered to secure the throne for his own descendants, although Banquo's son Fleance escapes. Finally, the witches warn Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Macbeth then proceeds to have Macduff's wife and children murdered. Macduff does eventually defeat Macbeth, but obviously not before a lot of damage has been done. There's more to the story than that, of course, but those are the main points. Hopefully what's going on in this story will make more sense now!_

Chapter X

Joe shook his head in utter bewilderment as he read the strange message that had been delivered. "I suppose it's another quote from _Macbeth_. Well, we were right about Evan, but why would Macbeth send the message to us instead of leaving it at the scene like the other times?"

Frank ran a hand through his hair. "Who knows?"

Laura tightened her lips as if she was thinking something, but didn't want to say what it was. Her sons noticed it and wondered about it, but their friends saw nothing.

"Maybe they're taunting you," Tony suggested. "You know, saying 'Catch me if you can' by putting things right on your front porch in broad daylight."

"Or maybe the notes aren't from the murderer at all." Chet's eyes widened at his own theory. "They're being left by someone who knows who the murderer is but are afraid that they'll be next if they say so plainly, so they're leaving the messages all over the place."

"I doubt that," Iola interjected, "but it could be because whoever's writing them wants you guys to find them, and he couldn't be sure you would if he left it at the place where he nabbed Evan."

"But how does he know we're involved at all?" Joe asked. "The police are working on this case. Why not send the notes to them?"

"Boys," Laura broke in, "this is serious. You need to get this note to the police right away."

"Right," Frank agreed. "I'll do it."

"I'll go with you," Joe quickly added.

"Mom's right – this is serious," Frank told him. "We need to solve this case as fast as possible, and we can't do that if we're wasting time with both of us running errands that one could handle. Why don't you talk the case over with Dad?" He said it like there was some hidden meaning in it, but Joe couldn't see what that meaning was right away.

"What are we gonna do?" Chet asked. "We come all the way over here to help you solve the mystery, and then you start talking about how you don't even need Joe."

"You three can come with me," Frank offered. "We can brainstorm our next move on the way. Meanwhile, Joe can stay here and talk to Dad about the case."

The way he emphasized the word "case" made his meaning suddenly click in Joe's brain. "Oh, right, the case."

Tony looked from Joe to Frank. "Do you guys have something going on that you don't want the rest of us to know about?"

Frank had been giving Joe an annoyed glare, but he turned to Tony to answer his question. "Hopefully not, or Joe just gave it away by sounding like the villain's sidekick in a Disney movie."

Joe grinned. "I just meant the case. The case for Evan, the case chosen especially to clear Evan, Evan's case. That case?"

Iola giggled, but then she said with some seriousness in her voice, "It looks like you guys aren't going to give away your secrets after all."

Even in the midst of joking around, the mention of giving away secrets reminded Joe of one secret in particular that he wished Iola knew and he found he didn't have any more jokes to make.

"All right, let's go," Frank said, hoping they could leave before this turned into even more of a train wreck.

Chet, Tony, and Iola piled into the Hardys' car with him and he backed out of the driveway. Joe turned to go into the house, but stopped when he caught Laura's eyes. It didn't take much detective skill to realize that she had already figured out that it wasn't necessarily the case at hand that he intended to talk to his dad about.

He hurried through the front door and went up to Fenton's home office before Laura could stop him. Fenton was sitting at his desk, reading something on his computer. He looked up as Joe came into the room.

"Did Mom show you that envelope that was left on the porch?" he asked.

Joe nodded. "It was another one of those crazy _Macbeth_ quotes. This one was casting Evan as Malcolm and Donalbain. I guess he doesn't understand that it doesn't work the greatest to have one guy play two. Oh, I guess we didn't tell you that Evan went missing yet."

"The police did," Fenton said simply.

"How come?" Joe asked. "Are you taking the case?"

"Not exactly," Fenton replied. "I called Ezra this morning and asked him to let me in on what's going on. Where's Frank?"

"He's taking the note to the police," Joe told him. "Dad, I was hoping I could talk to you about something."

"I was hoping I could talk to you, and I think we have about the same thing in mind," Fenton said. "I had hoped that Frank would be here, too, but maybe in some ways it will be easier to talk to you separately."

Joe sat down in one of the chairs Fenton kept in his office. "This doesn't sound good."

"You know," Fenton told him, "your mom is just as good a detective as any of us."

"No kidding," Joe replied. "If she helped us on our cases, the villains wouldn't stand a chance."

"She has a theory about this one that she talked over with me," Fenton went on. "I think she just might have a point."

"About this case somehow being connected to another case you solved?" Joe asked. "That's actually exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."

Fenton sighed. "There are similarities between the two cases, and so it is very possible that they're connected somehow. This message being delivered here, to you and Frank, makes it even likelier. If they are –"

"This must have been some case," Joe observed. "I've never seen you have a problem talking about one of your cases before."

"This one's different." Fenton bit his lip. Although he had been working on deciding exactly what and how much he would tell his sons about this, he still hadn't made up his mind yet. "There are several different ways they could be connected. In one scenario – the worst possible one – I should be able to find out about it pretty easily. I'll just need to talk to the other person who was instrumental in solving the case."

"All right." Joe was having a hard time following. His dad often kept things to himself about current cases that he was working on by himself, but it wasn't like him to make vague hints about past cases or his sons' current cases without explaining why. "So, until you do that, are we clear to keep working on the case?"

Fenton looked down at his hands, not answering right away. Finally, he said, "Yes, but you have to be very careful. And if I learn that these cases are connected, you're going to have to give it up."

"Why?" Joe asked.

"It's too dangerous," Fenton told him.

Joe shook his head, not necessarily because he was disagreeing with Fenton but more because he was confused. "I don't get it, Dad. Frank and I have worked on plenty of dangerous cases before now and you and Mom didn't make us stop. What's so different about this one? What happened on that other case?"

"You may have a point," Fenton conceded. "This isn't the first dangerous case you've taken on, but I don't want it to be the last."

"Ominous," Joe commented, "but it doesn't answer my question. What happened?"

"I'll tell you about that other case another time," Fenton told him. "When you're older."

"Dad," Joe protested. "I'm seventeen, and I've seen a lot more stuff than your typical seventeen-year-old. Whatever happened, I'm old enough to hear about it."

Fenton smiled a little ruefully. "That's true, Joe. But trust me on this, you're going to have to be older than you are now to understand why the things that happened on that case happened. And I'm going to have to ask you to make me another promise."

"What's that?" Joe asked.

"Don't try to find out about it on your own," Fenton said. "I want to tell you about it myself when the time comes."

Joe sighed. Promising to leave a mystery be didn't come easily to him. Even so, he knew he had to. "Okay, Dad. I promise."

HBHBHBHBHB

"This hasn't been near as exciting as the other day," Tony complained as Frank came out of police headquarters after delivering the message to a grudging Detective Olaf.

"You mean you want to almost get run over with a car again?" Frank asked, climbing into the driver's seat.

"Well, no," Tony replied. "That would be kind of repetitive."

Chet rolled his eyes. "Tony, if you're planning on being a comedian when you finish school, don't. You'll starve."

"Thanks for the advice," Tony said dryly.

Frank glanced at his watch. He had been talking to Olaf for more than an hour, and he couldn't blame his friends if they had gotten impatient waiting. He wasn't sure, though, that an hour was enough time for Joe to finish his conversation with Fenton. He'd have to find another way to keep his friends occupied, since it wouldn't do to go home until that conversation was over.

"You know," Frank said, "I've been thinking about this case."

"Oh, wow," Chet replied. "That's big news."

"The murderer," Frank continued, ignoring Chet's sarcasm, "is copying the murders in _Macbeth_. At least, we thought at first that's what he was up to. If he's caused Evan to disappear, he must be trying to copy the whole story and not just the murders."

"So?" Tony asked. "You guys have already said you thought Banquo would be the next to go, but that doesn't help us figure out who Banquo is."

"I've got an idea to figure it out," Frank said. "In the play, Macbeth got the whole idea from the three witches. What if there's someone in real life who's playing that part?"

"Uh –" Tony started to say, but Chet interrupted, "Could be. Maybe it's a medium or something. I mean, it's not exactly the same thing, but –"

"But it works here," Frank completed his sentence. "In the play, Macbeth essentially got the idea – or at least the inspiration – for murdering Duncan from the witches' prediction of the future."

"Wait, so you're saying that the murderer got the idea from a medium?" Tony asked. "I didn't think you believed in that sort of thing."

"I don't," Frank replied. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is whether the murderer believes in it."

Tony shivered involuntarily.

"Don't tell me you believe in that stuff," Chet said.

"I don't believe they can see the future or anything," Tony told him. "It's just – they're messing with the proverbial things they don't understand. And I think it would be better if we didn't mess with them either."

Chet rolled his eyes, but Frank's response was more generous. "If you'd rather not come, you don't have to."

Tony took a few seconds to weigh the pros and cons and finally said with a sigh, "I guess it wouldn't hurt anything."

"Shouldn't we go get Joe and bring him along?" Iola asked, speaking up for the first time.

Frank checked his watch again, as if to remind himself that not enough time had passed. "He's fine. We'll catch him up when we get back. He won't mind."

"Are you sure about that?" Chet asked, raising an eyebrow.

Frank desperately racked his brain to think of some answer to this, but he was saved the trouble by Iola interrupting the conversation.

"Hey, guys, I just got a text from Clarissa," she said, looking at her phone.

"So?" Chet asked dryly. "Don't tell me she's a friend of yours."

"No, but she wants me to come over right away," Iola replied. "She says it's urgent."


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: I'm breaking my usual Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday pattern to post this chapter on Monday because things are going to start getting really intense soon and I'm dying trying to not give anything away! Some of you have made some really good guesses and asked some questions that hit right at the heart of this mystery, and I'm afraid if I respond to any of them, I might say too much._

 _Anyway, thank you all so much for reading, following, and especially reviewing! Thanks especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter, and to everyone else who has left reviews on earlier chapters! You're all awesome!_

Chapter XI

"I wonder what Clarissa wants." Tony wrinkled his nose in disgust as Frank stopped the car in front of the Margot house. The incident from last time he had been there was still fresh in his mind.

"It's got to be something to do with the case," Iola said confidently. "There's no other reason Clarissa would text me."

"But why wouldn't she text Frank or Joe?" Chet pointed out.

"She doesn't have my number, as far as I know," Frank told him, "and I doubt she has Joe's either."

They got out of the car and went to the door. Frank knocked and they waited. They all breathed a small sigh of relief when it was Clarissa who finally opened the door rather than her stepfather.

Clarissa scowled at them. "I only asked you to come, Iola. This is personal."

Iola cast a sheepish glance at her companions. "Oh?" She looked back at Clarissa. "I didn't know we were close enough friends that you'd call me for something personal. I figured it was something about the mystery."

Clarissa rolled her eyes. "Just because your boyfriend is working on it."

"My what?" Iola's face blushed a more brilliant red than it ever did and she cast a rather terrified glance at Frank, who also looked uncomfortable.

"Not that one. The cute one," Clarissa said carelessly.

At that, Iola blushed so much more that her nose was even red. Chet and Tony began to smirk, and Frank now looked more amused than either embarrassed or offended.

"You three get lost." Clarissa directed the words at the boys. "I need to talk to Iola by herself."

She led the way into the house and Iola began to follow. Before she closed the door behind her, Iola looked back at the boys.

"If any of you ever mention this again, or say anything to Joe, I'll – I'll strangle all of you," she said in a stage-whisper.

As soon as Clarissa had closed the door behind her, she led Iola upstairs to her bedroom. Once inside, she carefully locked the door and then turned to look at her guest.

"He won't bother us now as long as we talk quiet enough," Clarissa said in a low voice.

"Um, who won't bother us?" Iola was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy.

"Simeon, of course." Clarissa shook her head as if bewildered that Iola didn't know this.

"Your stepdad?" Iola asked. "Why would he bother us?"

Clarissa rolled her eyes and groaned. "You were right, actually. This is about the curse, and I did just call you in because your boyfriend is working on it. I just don't want to talk to a guy about this, if you know what I mean."

"Joe's not my boyfriend," Iola protested, her cheeks turning scarlet again. She could feel herself blushing, and it annoyed her. It seemed like such a giveaway for how she really felt about Joe.

"He's not?" Clarissa asked. "Why else do you hang around those guys then?"

"They're my friends," Iola told her. "You know, you don't have to be attracted in that way to everyone you spend time with."

Clarissa shrugged. "Whatever. I wish I had your problems. Having a non-boyfriend who happens to be one of the cutest guys in school is nothing compared to my boyfriend problems."

"You want to talk to me about boyfriend problems?" Iola asked. "I thought you wanted to talk about the mystery."

"They're connected, sweetie, keep up." Iola bristled a little at Clarissa's rude tone and word choice, but she allowed her to continue. "I found this on the back porch an hour ago. I've been trying to decide ever since what to do with it."

She handed an envelope to Iola, who opened it and silently read the message inside:

 _Dear Clarissa,_

 _I'm so sorry. I didn't think it would go this far. At least – I didn't think you would get hurt in all of this. I don't want that to happen. If you leave – right now – you'll be safe. Please go. I'll never see you again, but at least I'll know you were away from all of this._

 _Macbeth_

Iola looked up, shaking her head. "I – I –" she began.

"Creepy, huh?" Clarissa asked. "I've got a murderer with a crush on me. I mean, it's not the first loser I've had chasing after me, but it is the most loserish loser yet."

"This might help solve the mystery." Iola looked at the typed message again. "Do you have any idea who sent it?"

"Search me," Clarissa replied. "It could have been any one of a couple dozen boys at school. I have so many guys with crushes on me, it's not even funny. The only guy who doesn't have a crush on me is Jason Reid, and of course he'd be the one guy that I wish did."

"Jason," Iola mused, a thought occurring to her.

"This couldn't possibly be from Jason," Clarissa protested. "Like I said, he barely gives me the time of day. Besides, he wouldn't have given himself an allergic reaction."

"How did you know about that?" Iola asked. "I thought he was keeping it pretty well hushed up."

"Yeah, well, when he didn't show up to school, I went to visit him and make sure he was all right," Clarissa said. "Apparently, he's deathly allergic to peanuts. At least, that's what my mom told me."

Iola twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, thinking. She had a theory, but she wasn't sure if it added up quite right. "Did you actually see him, or did you just talk to his mom?"

"His mom said he was too sick to see anyone," Clarissa replied. "So, no, I didn't actually see him."

"He should be better now," Iola said. "Let's go see him."

"Wait, he didn't do it," Clarissa insisted. "I – I just know he didn't."

"I'm not so sure," Iola told her. "After all, he evidently didn't tell anyone about his allergies. If he's that allergic, he would have had to tell people so no one would accidently give him something with peanuts. Besides, there's nothing to be embarrassed about with having an allergy. But whatever the case, since he didn't tell anyone, how could anyone else have known how to put him out of commission for a while?"

Clarissa shook her head. "There's got to be another explanation. Besides, he doesn't have a split personality."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Iola asked.

"The guy behind this must have a split personality," Clarissa insisted. "One minute, he's sending me death threats, the next he's telling me he never wanted to hurt me."

Iola had to admit that that was a good point. Nevertheless, she stuck to her original plan. "At any rate, Jason might be able to give us an idea who is behind this. Let's go."

Clarissa sighed, but she followed Iola out the door. Iola started walking toward Clarissa's car in the driveway, but Clarissa stopped her.

"Let's walk instead," she said. "It's not that far, and besides, I haven't said everything I've got to say."

Iola agreed and the two girls began walking. It wasn't until they were almost three blocks away from the Margot house before Clarissa started talking.

"It's my stepdad," Clarissa said suddenly. "I think he has something to do with all of this. The play, the murders, everything. Everything except writing me that message. That would just be another whole realm of creepy."

"Why do you say that?" Iola asked. "About him being behind everything, I mean."

"Because he's a crook," Clarissa replied. "I don't know what he's done, but I know he's done it and he knows that I know. He just doesn't know that I don't know what he did. Or what he does, maybe. That's why he's so awful to me."

"But how do you know?" Iola insisted.

"I overheard him talking to someone about it." Clarissa sighed. "I didn't really hear what they were talking about, but it sounded illegal, and when they found me nearby – oh boy."

"Wait – you saw who he was talking to?" Iola asked. "Do you know who it was?"

"Yep," Clarissa replied. "And that's why I think Simeon has something to do with the murders. The guy he was talking to was Brian Donahue."

Iola stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, too surprised to keep going. "What – How long ago was this?"

"A few months," Clarissa told her. "They told me that if I ever told anyone, they would – well, they didn't say exactly what they would do, but it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to guess." She furiously brushed a tear from her eye. "You don't know what a nightmare it's been since then. Simeon's been spying on me constantly and he doesn't let me go anywhere but school and school activities and he doesn't let me have any friends over. He even did something to my phone so he can see all the text messages I send out and listen to any phone calls. I've been too scared to say anything to anyone before this. Please don't tell anyone, Iola."

Iola felt as if her head was spinning around with this startling information. "Of course, I won't. I – I had no idea. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe my parents could help you get a lawyer and get a new guardian appointed for you."

Clarissa shook her head. "I'll be eighteen in a few months. It would just about take that long for a court proceeding to go through, anyway. I've just got to make it to February, and then I can get away from him."

"Well, if you need a friend –" Iola offered.

Clarissa rolled her eyes. "As if I'd be welcome in your circle of friends. As if I'd even want to be."

Iola sighed. She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she kept quiet for the rest of the walk, but she did think a lot, wondering just how all these seemingly random pieces fit together."

When they reached the Reid house, Jason himself opened the door. He looked surprised at who his visitors were.

"Oh, hi, girls," he said. "Is this about the play? I thought it was called off."

"Indefinitely," Iola told him, "although the chances of it going back on are getting worse every minute. We wanted to talk to you about what happened with your allergies, if you didn't mind."

"My – allergies?" Jason's face betrayed a look of utter confusion. "What are – oh, did my mom tell you about them the other day?"

Iola nodded. "That's why you missed school, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." Jason stepped out of the house and closed the door behind him. "Look, I'm not really feeling the greatest still, so I can't talk for very long. Besides, I don't really see how it's any of your business."

"This isn't the first attack on someone involved in the play," Clarissa spoke up. "For instance, I've been threatened and attacked several times."

"Julie's been threatened, too," Iola added. "And there have been other things that have happened that fortunately no one was hurt. We need to get to the bottom of this. How did someone sneak peanut butter into your lunch?"

Jason hung his head. "You want the truth? The real truth? It wasn't peanut butter that they put in my lunch. It wouldn't have been a problem if it had been. I'm not allergic to anything that I know of."

"Then why did your mom tell us you were?" Clarissa asked.

"It's a long story." Jason sighed. "Well, I've let the cat out of the bag now. I guess I might as well tell you the whole thing."

HBHBHBHBHB

"That's the whole story, Carson," Fenton said into his phone. "It sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it?"

Carson Drew, on the other end of the line, sighed. "It sure does. I thought this was over fifteen years ago."

"Wished," Fenton corrected him. "We both knew they were serious. If this is what's going on, though, they'll be coming after you and Nancy just as hard."

"Yeah," Carson said. "Are you going to tell Frank and Joe everything?"

Fenton gazed at the wall for a while, thinking, before he said, "I don't think they'll understand."


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note: Once again, thank you all for reading, following, and reviewing my story! An especial thanks to Barb, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter, as well as to everyone who has left reviews on chapters before that. Your feedback is always helpful and I love reading it!_

Chapter XII

"You know, maybe I'm with Tony on this one after all," Chet said as Frank pulled the car away from a small café where a medium did her work. "It's a little creepy that there are this many fortune-tellers in Bayport."

Tony leaned forward from the backseat. "So we're giving up?"

"No," Frank said. "Give me the next address, Chet."

"We've visited two already," Tony reminded him. "And we haven't found anything out. This is such a long shot, why don't we try a different angle?"

"If you want to go home, Tony, you can," Frank told him. "I didn't know you took this stuff seriously."

"Well, not seriously, exactly. It's more like –" Tony's voice trailed off in a frustrated sigh. "Okay, I do take it seriously, and I don't think it's something we ought to be messing around with. I know it probably won't do any harm just talking to these people, but if they start doing any creepy, witchy-type stuff, I'm out of here, okay?"

"Okay," Frank agreed. "That's fair enough."

"The next one's over on Dunsinane," Chet said, looking at his phone.

Frank involuntarily hit the brake pedal hard enough that the seatbelts kicked in for all three boys. "What did you say?"

Chet looked at Frank in bewilderment. "The next medium is on Dunsinane Street. You know, that one over by –"

"Yeah, I know where it's at," Frank replied. "It's just – Dunsinane is the name of Macbeth's castle."

Tony whistled. "Okay, well, maybe there is something to this witch theory, then."

They arrived at the address ten minutes later. It was just a regular house in a residential district, but it matched the address that Chet had found on his smartphone. Frank's knock on the door was answered immediately by a woman in traditional gypsy garb. However, she was fair-skinned, almost pale, with straw-blond hair, and she looked to be in her late twenties.

"Frank, Tony, Chet," she greeted them with a smile. "I've been expecting you."

Tony took a step back. Chet's eyes widened and he cast a nervous glance at Frank. Even Frank was taken aback.

"How did you know our names and that we're coming?" he asked.

The woman smiled again. "I know many things. And I know that you don't believe that. Tony does, though, perhaps you ought to listen to him, even if he does fear my knowledge."

"Uh, Frank, maybe we should come back at a better time," Chet suggested.

"Guys, calm down," Frank muttered, half-turning toward his friends. He looked back at the woman. "We wanted to ask you some questions."

"Ah, yes," she replied. "About one mysterious disappearance, two plays, three strange accidents, and four murders."

Chet and Tony exchanged glances behind Frank's back, noticing the disturbing way in which the woman's numbers didn't add up. Frank saw it at once, too, but it only made him all the more curious.

"Can we come in?" he asked.

The woman stepped out of the way to let them enter. "Of course. My name is Helena Markovich."

Chet and Tony both hesitated before following Frank through the door, but they felt they couldn't abandon their friend. They entered into a sitting room and Helena gestured for them to sit.

"You said there were four murders?" Frank began. "There have only been three."

"So there have," Helena agreed. "So far."

"Um, if you know so much, do you know who's going to get killed next?" Chet asked.

Helena smiled enigmatically. "Yes."

"Care to share that info?" Chet said with a nervous chuckle.

Helena did not reply.

Frank cleared his throat. "Then I suppose you also know who's behind it. If you do, you really need to tell us."

"Why?" Helena asked.

"So we can bust the guy before he kills anybody else," Chet replied.

"The evidence of a clairvoyant is hardly admissible in court," Helena reminded them. "I cannot help you."

"You can at least point us in the right direction," Frank insisted.

"Do you remember what happened to Phineus?" Helena asked.

"Never met him," Chet said. "Is he the other guy who got murdered?"

Yet another smile crossed Helena's face. Each time, Frank decided he liked it less and less. "Hardly," she replied. "He was a seer of the ancient world who revealed secrets that Zeus had decreed should remain unknown to man. In punishment for his crime, he was cursed to be tormented by harpies to the end of his days. The gods do not wish us to reveal too much of their secrets."

"Uh, Frank?" Tony spoke up.

Frank, however, looked unimpressed. "Not to be blunt, but you're overdoing the acting a little. Everyone involved in this case seems to be cast as a character in _Macbeth_ , whether they're willing or not. If you've been cast in the role that makes most sense for you, you know what's going on for much more natural reason than you're letting on."

Far from seeming offended, Helena only smiled once again. "So you think I'm the three witches? There's hardly three of me. I have written down all the information I can give you." She handed a sealed envelope to Frank. "Wait until you have left here to open it."

"Why?" Frank asked.

"You will understand when you read it," Helena told him. "Now the three of you will have to go. You will be too late if you don't leave now."

"Too late for what?" Frank turned the envelope over in his hands.

"Now, or you will regret how you find out." For the first time, Helena's voice became almost a bit threatening.

"Frank, let's go," Tony urged.

"All right," Frank agreed, "but we'll be back later."

He stood up and followed Tony and Chet to the door. Chet dove for the front seat and locked the door after him, wiping his brow when he'd done so.

"Whew! She was seriously creeping me out. I didn't think we'd get out of there alive," Chet said.

Tony shuddered. "She was creepy, but I don't think she was for real. I don't know."

"I don't care, honestly," Frank added. He opened the envelope carefully and took the paper out. Only two words were written on it:

 _Beware, Macduff_

HBHBHBHBHB

"It wasn't peanut butter," Jason Reid explained to Iola and Clarissa Margot. "And I didn't eat it, fortunately. It turned out that someone slipped some poison in my lunch."

"What?" both girls gasped.

"I guess that's overdramatizing it a little, but the end result could have been the same," Jason said. "See, my mom sends my lunch to me at school, but I didn't eat it for lunch that day because we had pizza in the cafeteria and that's literally the only day they serve decent food. So I save it for an afternoon snack. But I took one bite and it tasted really weird. That's when I noticed the note in it."

"What did it say?" Iola asked excitedly.

"Your typical death threat, straight out of some cringy kid's book." Jason shrugged. "I guess I panicked a little, though. So I skipped out of school for the rest of the day and took the whole thing to the cops. They analyzed it and saw that someone had poured hand sanitizer all over the food. More than enough to kill someone, but since the taste was such an obvious giveaway and because of the note, they thought someone was just trying to scare me. Anyway, they and my parents decided it would be just as well if I didn't go to school for a few days, just in case whoever it was tried something more dangerous."

"I've been getting death threats right and left, and someone's tried to kill me a couple of times," Clarissa asserted. "What's going on, Iola? Can you explain any of this?"

Iola shook her head. "I don't get it. But, Clarissa, you – I don't get it. Is this guy trying to kill you or not? What about that letter you got?"

"Like I said, the guy's got a split personality," Clarissa insisted. Her face suddenly turned pale. "Unless –"

"Unless what?" Jason asked.

"Unless it's been Simeon who's been trying to kill me," Clarissa said.

"Why would he do that?" Iola leaned forward a bit, interested in this new theory.

"He hates my guts," Clarissa replied. "I thought I had made myself clear on that point. Besides, he's a total creep who's obsessed with keeping tabs on me all the time. I wouldn't put it past him to try to kill me."

Just then there was a succession of furious rings at the doorbell whose echo throughout the house seemed ominous, as if they were heralding a doom that was coming upon them all. All three sat perfectly still, tensing up for whatever it was that they felt was coming.

A moment later, they heard Jason's mother call up the stairs, "Clarissa? Your dad is here to take you home."

Clarissa's eyes widened in fear. As much as Iola disliked Clarissa, in view of everything, she couldn't help feeling sorry for her, not to mention afraid for her.

"Do you want me to come, too?" she asked.

Clarissa slowly shook her head and took in a deep breath. "No, that would only make it worse. It'll be okay. I'll – I'll text you both when I get home."

Then, with the air of a condemned but innocent prisoner being led to the gallows, she when out the door and downstairs.

HBHBHBHBHB

"Do you have any idea what this is all about, Aunt Gertrude?" Joe asked. He and his aunt were sitting in the living room of the Hardy house, Aunt Gertrude reading and Joe bouncing his leg up and down and shifting position every few seconds in his impatience.

Aunt Gertrude looked at him over the top of her book. "Contrary to what you boys seem to think, you don't have to know about everything."

"But, Aunty," Joe protested, "Mom and Dad have been hinting around about how this case was the worst thing that ever happened and acting like it's some secret, forbidden knowledge that Frank and I shouldn't ever have to learn. I mean, if they're trying to kill me with curiosity, they're going about it in the right way."

Closing her book with one finger inside it to mark her spot, Aunt Gertrude looked at her nephew even more intently. "To tell the truth, I'm dying to know what it's all about, too."

Joe's shoulders slumped a bit with disappointment. "Then you don't know what it's about and there's no point in trying to wheedle it out of you."

Aunt Gertrude smiled ever so slightly. "I have a few guesses, anyway. There was one case, right before Fenton left the NYPD to come here to Bayport and become a private detective that had him and Laura beside themselves with worry. I don't remember what the case was about – I don't think I ever knew – but I've wracked my brain and I can't think of any other case that had them so upset."

"Interesting," Joe mused. "You don't have any idea what it was about?"

"Sorry," Aunt Gertrude replied. "If I was to make another guess, though, I think – I'm not sure – but I think that that case was the reason Fenton left the police force. He seemed so happy with his job, and then, after that case – well."

Joe leaned back in his chair, thinking. His dad was so steady. What could have possibly shaken him up that badly? Aunt Gertrude must have been turning the same question over in her mind, since she didn't open her book again and was just staring off into space.

Joe's phone buzzed and the sound made him jump. He looked at the screen and saw that it was a text from Iola saying, "Could u pls pick me up from Jasons house?"

It was scarcely poetry, but Joe felt a tightness in his chest like a person does when they read something really moving – or like Joe always did when he read one of Iola's texts.

"Hey, Aunty, I've got to go," Joe said.

"But your dad wanted to talk to you after he finished his phone call," Aunt Gertrude reminded him.

"The call's taking forever and this will only take a minute," Joe told her. "I'll be back in no time."

He hurried out the door, grabbing the key to his motorcycle as he went, noticing that it was getting dark. When he was about halfway to Jason Reid's house, he heard a scream from somewhere ahead of him.


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: As always, thank you to all of you who are reading and following this story. Just knowing that you're reading it is super encouraging to me! I would especially like to thank Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and BMSH for your reviews on the last chapter, as well as everyone else who has reviewed earlier chapters. All of your comments and feedback are helping me to be a (hopefully) better writer._

Chapter XIII

Joe's first reaction was to stop when he heard the scream, but he realized he needed to go straight ahead to get to whoever was in trouble. One block down, he saw a girl running toward him and as she did, she shrieked again.

Joe skidded his motorbike to a stop. "Clarissa?" he said, recognizing her.

Clarissa rushed right at him and grabbed him in an embrace. "Joe, they – He's dead, I know he's dead – It – It could've been me – He was – I didn't – They –" Her words died away in an unintelligible jumble of tears and meaningless sounds.

"Pull yourself together, Clarissa," Joe told her. "What happened?"

Clarissa might have tried again to sob the story out, but Joe couldn't tell for sure. He decided from her incoherent words that someone else must be in serious trouble. Trying to extricate himself from Clarissa's grasp, he began running in the direction she had come from.

"No!" she gasped. "It's too dangerous! They – they've killed him." To Joe's astonishment, she burst into a frenzy of giggles.

"Who's been killed?" Joe demanded, but by now Clarissa's laughter and tears were combined into what seemed to be genuine hysteria.

One fortunate side effect of Clarissa's bizarre reaction was that she now let go of Joe. He had a momentary misgiving about leaving her by herself, but he reminded himself that there was evidently someone who really needed help.

He dashed down the street and rounded the corner that Clarissa had emerged from a moment before. It was a residential area and there was already a small crowd gathering. Joe pushed through and saw the object of their interest: a man's body lying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk.

Joe's stomach turned at the sight and he didn't have much doubt that man was dead. Nonetheless, he bent down to check for a pulse. There was none. It was then that he realized the man was Simeon Margot.

"Has anyone called the police?" he asked the crowd.

"I just did," a woman replied. "They should be here any minute."

Joe nodded and looked down at the body again. He saw that there was a paper pinned to Margot's shirt with the message written in black marker and plainly visible:

 _Banquo_

 _Safe in a ditch he bides,  
With twenty trenched gashes on his head_

The thought that he'd better get back to Clarissa fast flashed through his brain. "Stay here and wait for the police," Joe said, rushing back to where he had left Clarissa.

Fortunately, she had stayed there. She was sitting down on the sidewalk, sobbing. Joe saw a wadded piece of paper lying next to her and picked it up. Another message like the one pinned to her stepfather's body was written on it:

 _Fleance_

 _Fleance is 'scaped_

"Clarissa," he said, kneeling down next to her. "Are you all right?"

Clarissa looked up at him. Despite her tears, she seemed more aware of what was going on now. "Is – is he dead?"

Joe nodded. "Are you hurt at all?"

Taking a long, shuddering sigh, Clarissa shook her head. "No – just scared to death. I – I don't think they meant to kill me. They shoved that note in my hand and let me run away."

"What did they look like and what happened exactly?" Joe asked.

"I didn't see their faces," Clarissa admitted. "They were wearing dark hoods that covered up their faces. Simeon was walking me home, and they jumped out at us with daggers. There were three of them."

HBHBHBHBHB

It was almost nine o'clock and completely dark by the time Joe and Iola walked back to where Joe had parked his motorcycle several hours earlier. When Joe had called her to tell her what had happened, Iola had walked down to the scene of the murder to meet him. To Joe's frustration, Olaf was the officer who had responded to the call, and he had insisted on getting complete statements from both Joe and Iola, although neither of them was able to tell him very much.

"I don't see how that guy is still on the police force," Iola said. "He has no tact and goes around randomly accusing people. I hope he doesn't blame Clarissa for this."

Joe rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised. And, to be honest, it wouldn't be the worst accusation he made. At least it would be someone who actually has opportunity and motive."

"Joe, you know as well as I do that Clarissa didn't do it," Iola told him.

"Well, I sure hope she didn't," Joe replied, although he had to admit to himself that he wasn't completely convinced. "It's weird, though. I thought Margot and Donahue were mortal enemies, but now it seems like they both had at least one enemy in common."

"I didn't know they were enemies," Iola said. "In fact, Clarissa said that they were in some conspiracy together. Who told you they didn't get along?"

"I don't remember," Joe started to say, but just then something clicked in his brain. "Wait, it was that kid at the rehearsal. Terry something."

"Terry Shanth?" Iola asked. "But he's one of Evan's best friends. He couldn't be behind this."

"We could at least check him out," Joe insisted. "Does he live very far away?"

"Not too far," Iola told him. "Isn't it getting kind of late to bother him?"

"At this point, I don't really care," Joe replied. "We've got to stop Macbeth before he strikes again. After all, if he keeps to the script of the play, the next people he'll hit will be a woman and her little kids."

HBHBHBHBHB

"That was a sneaky trick," Tony complained. "I thought she would give us something that would at least tell us something. What does 'Beware, Macduff' even mean, anyway?"

"It's from _Macbeth_ ," Frank replied. "I guess that goes without saying at this point. I don't get the comma, though. When the apparition says that, it's talking to Macbeth and warning him about Macduff. The comma makes it sound like it's warning Macduff about something."

"So what?" Chet asked. "Who's Macduff?"

"He's the guy who defeated Macbeth." Frank spoke more slowly as he neared the end of his sentence. "Oh, man. We've got to get home right away."

He threw the car into gear and pulled out into the street so fast that the tires squealed. Tony, who was in the back seat and hadn't had time to buckle, went sprawling across the seat.

"What's the hurry, Frank?" he asked.

"I think I just figured out who Macduff is," Frank told him, "and if I'm right –"

"Wait, you mean _you're_ Macduff?" Chet stared at Frank in horror. "But, hold it. If Macduff took down Macbeth, and you're Macduff, then this guy can't really kill you or he'll goof the story."

"No, no, no," Frank told him. "I'm not Macduff. Dad is. And in the play Macbeth had Macduff's wife and children killed."

"Seriously?" Tony asked, eyes widening. "We'd better find your mom and Joe in a hurry."

"Chet, call Joe, will you," Frank requested.

"Sure thing." Chet took out his phone and swiped to dial Joe's number. He waited until the voicemail message came up. "No answer. Do you think –"

"Hold on," Tony said. "I thought you said someone else was supposed to get killed next. The banker."

"Banquo," Frank corrected him. "You're right. Although, maybe he already did. Helena said – Where's my brain? Tony, call the police and tell them to raid that place and pick up Helena. She's obviously in on it."

"Right." Tony dialed the number and began excitedly explaining the situation to the officer who answered.

A few minutes later, Frank parked the car in the driveway to his house. He was more than a little concerned when he noticed Joe's motorcycle was gone from the garage. The three boys rushed in the house through the front door.

"Mom?" Frank called. "Mom, are you here?"

Laura came running down the stairs, alarmed at the urgency in Frank's tone. "I'm right here. Is something wrong, Frank?"

"Maybe," Frank replied ambiguously. "Is Joe home? I saw his motorbike was gone."

"He left about half an hour ago," Laura told him. "He didn't say where he was going."

"Is Dad home?" Frank asked.

"I'm right here, Frank," Fenton said, appearing at the top of the stairs. "What's wrong?"

Frank began explaining the afternoon's events, with Tony and Chet adding in details throughout. When he had finished, Fenton frowned.

"I think you might be onto something," he said. "It fits with my theory about this case. I –"

He was interrupted by his smartphone ringing. Mechanically, he looked at the screen, but what he saw made him instantly alert. "It's Collig," he announced to the room in general before answering the call.

Everyone held their breaths, more the a little concerned that Collig's unexpected call indicated bad news. However, when they saw Fenton's face relax a little, they all decided that the news at least wasn't about Joe.

"When did this happen?" Fenton asked. He nodded. "Okay. What was he doing there? – Good. How long do you think it will take? – Yeah, I know. Thanks, Ezra."

"What was that about?" Laura inquired as he ended the call.

"Frank's clairvoyant was right," Fenton replied. "There's been another murder – Simeon Margot. There was a note identifying him as Banquo. Clarissa was with him when he was attacked, but she was allowed to escape with a note casting her as Fleance."

Frank took in a long breath. "That means Macduff's family is next. We'd better try calling Joe again."

"Hold on," Fenton told him. "Joe's fine. He happened on the scene and is giving Olaf a statement. Iola's there, too, and they're going to come right home as soon as they're finished."

"That's a relief," Laura said. "Fenton, as soon as Joe gets here, we – we'd better talk to the boys."

"Right," Fenton agreed. "But first the two of us better talk something over. Come on."

He and Laura went back upstairs, leaving Frank, Chet, Tony, and Aunt Gertrude, who had come when she'd heard the commotion, standing in the living room in complete confusion. They all fell silent, and the silence was awkward.

Finally, Chet said, "Say, Frank, mind if Tony and I wait around here for Iola and Joe? I mean, it makes more sense than one of you guys having to give her a ride home."

"Yeah, sure," Frank replied absently.

His parents' behavior had him completely confused. He'd never seen either of them act so strangely or secretively before. It simply made no sense.

While he was trying to think through the whole thing, Tony and Chet made themselves comfortable in the easy chairs in the living room. Aunt Gertrude remained uncharacteristically quiet, which allowed Frank the silence to think.

"Frank, isn't it about time that Joe got here?" Aunt Gertrude asked, breaking into Frank's thoughts a long while later.

Frank looked up at the clock and saw that it was after nine. Wordlessly, he picked up his phone and called Joe's.

"Hey, Frank!" Tony shouted from the living room. "I think I figured out why Joe didn't answer his phone earlier." He appeared in the doorway holding up Joe's phone. "It was in the couch."

"He must have forgotten it when he rushed out of here earlier," Aunt Gertrude surmised.

"Well, that explains that, at least," Frank said, relieved that something had a logical explanation, at any rate. "I'll call Chief Collig, then."

Collig answered within two rings. "Hi, Frank. I figured you'd be calling before too long. My men went to the address of this Helena Markovich that you had Tony give us, but there wasn't a sign of her. None of the neighbors knew anything about her either."

"I'm not really surprised," Frank replied. "Actually, though, I was wondering if Olaf still has Joe and Iola tied up."

"Olaf's still at the scene," Collig told him. "I'll radio him and find out." There was about half a minute's delay, and then Collig's voice came back over the line. "Frank? Olaf says he let them go five, ten minutes ago. He should know exactly, but –" Collig sighed. "Anyway, they should be back to your house any minute."

"Okay, thanks, Chief," Frank said, and hung up.

He repeated what Collig had told him to the others and they all sat down in the living room to wait. Frank found himself watching the pendulum on the antique swing back and forth, its ticking sounding louder than usual. It seemed to be an ominous countdown to some doom.


	14. Chapter 14

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has been reading and following. Most of all, thank you to Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, BMSH, max2013, and Guest for your reviews since I posted the last chapter, as well as to everyone has left reviews before that._

Chapter XIV

"This is Terry's house?" Joe asked, taking his helmet off as he looked at the house he had just parked in front of. At least, he looked at as much of the house as he could. It was set a long way back from the street and there were enough large, old trees to partially obscure it. "Looks kind of spooky."

"Yeah." Iola shuddered. "I guess that's probably because of – everything that's happened. Maybe we should come back tomorrow."

There was a very large part of Joe that wanted to do exactly that, but his natural curiosity outweighed it. Besides, at the rate this case was going, any delay in solving it might cost more people their lives.

"Come on. We're here, so we might as well see if Terry's home," Joe told her.

He led the way down the path that went from the street to the front door. Although the moon was coming up and casting a glimmer of light, the trees along the path overshadowed it and it was almost as black as pitch. Joe reached for his phone to use the flashlight on it to light up the way, but he found that it wasn't in his pocket.

"I must have left my phone at home," he said.

"I've got mine." Iola took it out of her back pocket and shone it on the path. Somehow, the little circle of light made the darkness around them even more oppressive. Instinctively, Iola edged closer to Joe.

They both drew up to a complete stop when they heard a noise in the trees to their left. Iola shone her light in that direction, but there was nothing except the silent tree trunks and grass badly in need of being cut.

Joe laughed nervously. "This is pathetic. You'd think I had never investigated a mystery in the dark before."

Iola managed a wan smile as well. "It's probably these trees. They make it look like this could be a haunted house."

"There's not even supposed to be a ghost in this case," Joe replied.

"Well, in the play, Macbeth does see the ghost of Banquo," Iola reminded him. "Maybe we are going to run into a ghost."

Joe started walking again. "I hope not. You know, Iola, there aren't any lights on in the house. They're either not at home or they're already in bed."

"So we go back?" Iola asked hopefully. "Not to sound like my brother, but talking about ghosts is kinda giving me the creeps."

Joe hesitated, but he reminded himself of what was at stake in this case. "We've got to find out for sure. If they're gone, we'll come back tomorrow, and if we wake them up, well, they'll live. We've got to get to the bottom of this mystery."

Iola nodded. "Okay. Let's get this over with."

They walked the rest of the distance to the house. It wasn't far, but the darkness and the creepy feeling that they both had made it seem longer. When they reached the door, Joe looked for a doorbell, but didn't see one. Instead, he knocked as loudly as he could. There was no answer.

"Well, I guess that's that," he said. "We might as well have just waited for a reasonable hour. Sorry I've kept you out so late, Iola."

"Don't worry about it," Iola replied. "I don't mind." She stopped, thinking of just how little she minded spending time with just Joe.

A similar thought was running through Joe's mind. For a few moments, he toyed with the idea of telling Iola, but the same fear that had always kept him from saying anything made him unable to speak. After all, if Iola didn't feel the same way, it would make it awkward for the two of them to continue to be friends, and not even being friends with her was too much for Joe to bear.

Iola was walking a step or two ahead of Joe. The memory of Clarissa's comments earlier that day – when she had called Joe Iola's boyfriend in front of Frank, Chet, and Tony – flashed into her brain vividly. Her heart beat faster as she realized the repercussions that those words could have.

She stopped so suddenly that Joe ran into her. "Oh, sorry. Is something wrong?" he asked.

Iola turned around so she was facing him. "Joe, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time now. I – just didn't know how, I guess. Or that I should. I don't know."

Joe didn't reply, a sudden guess and a hope overwhelming him so that he couldn't speak.

Iola didn't seem to notice as she went on, "I still don't know that I should. It could – well, it would be worse if my brother or Frank or Tony said anything to you. So I guess I – it'd be better if it came from me. I – really like you, Joe."

She felt herself blush at the admission and she was glad that it was dark and her flashlight was pointed away from her so that Joe couldn't see.

Joe was stricken dumb at her words and all he could manage to say was, "You do?" The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. The way he had said them had made it sound like he didn't feel the way he did about Iola.

Iola thought so, too. Perhaps it was just that she was so afraid that that would be Joe's reaction that she read something into his words that wasn't there. Her chest felt like something was crushing it and she wished she had kept her mouth shut.

She put a hand up to brush a wisp of hair away from her face – a nervous habit that she always did when she was embarrassed. She used her hand that was holding her phone and the ray of light from it flashed into the trees to the left. As it did, it illuminated a sight that made her gasp.

"Joe! Look out!" Iola lunged forward and grabbed Joe by the shoulders, knocking him to the ground. As they fell, there were three sharp gunshots.

Joe would have been back on his feet, chasing after the sniper in an instant. Of course, that would have been a foolish thing to do, but thinking things through logically at moments like this wasn't one of Joe's strong points. Undoubtedly, Iola saved his life a second time that night, but this time it was unintentional.

Joe was getting to his feet when he heard Iola groan and realized that she was leaning much too hard against him. A sickened feeling numbed him and all he could do was hold Iola a little tighter and frantically say her name.

"Joe?" she murmured weakly. She gave a sort of strangled sob and said, "It hurts."

"Hey, hey. Stay calm." Joe was speaking almost more to himself that Iola. He shook his head and the action seemed to clear his brain a little. He remembered that the sniper was probably still out there and that he needed to get Iola to cover.

As soon as he thought it, he dragged her behind the nearest tree. It wasn't great cover – it wasn't even good cover, but the way Iola gasped and whimpered he didn't dare to hurt her any more.

Joe realized that Iola had dropped her phone, but he didn't dare go back and find it. In fact, they would be better off without it. That way the sniper wouldn't be able to see them. But Joe also wouldn't be able to call for help, he reminded himself.

"Joe?" Iola said again faintly.

"Keep it together," Joe thought. He felt short of breath and weak with fear, but he knew that if he didn't help Iola right away –

He noticed that the hand he was holding under her back was damp. Gently, he eased her to the ground, face downward. Joe tore his jacket off and pressed it over the damp spot on Iola's back.

Iola gave a sort of gasp. "That hurts," she whimpered.

"I know, I know," Joe told her softly.

He tried to keep his shaking hands still so that he could apply pressure to the wound effectively, but he couldn't. His throat tightened and he felt like he couldn't breathe.

"Iola?" he said.

Iola made no response.

"Iola?" Joe repeated, his voice catching.

"Identify yourself!" a man's voice demanded out of the dark.

Joe looked up and saw the gleam of a flashlight in the trees, but he couldn't make himself say a word. The flashlight was shone right in his.

"Joe?" the voice said again. "What's going on?"

This time, Joe recognized the voice as belonging to Officer Con Riley of the Bayport Police Department. He still couldn't respond, but Riley seemed to be able to take in the whole scene by himself. He pulled the radio clipped to his shirt close to his mouth and called for his backup and an ambulance.

"We got a call about shots fired," Riley said, taking over holding the direct pressure on Iola's wound. "Is the shooter still here?"

"I –" Joe replied incoherently. "Is she –"

"She's alive," Riley assured him.

Three more police officers arrived on the scene just then.

"What have you got, Con?" one asked.

"Iola Morton's been shot," Riley replied. "Here, take this over. Is the ambulance coming?"

The other officer took Riley's place. "Yeah. It should be here in five minutes."

"I hope that's enough time," Riley muttered. He looked over at Joe and saw how pale he was. "Come here. Let's sit down over here." He led Joe a few feet away and got him to sit down. "Are you hurt?"

Joe took a few deep breaths and shook his head.

Riley put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Joe shuddered and buried his face in his hands. "I don't know."

"I get it, Joe," Riley told him. "I get it."

"We need to get hold of her parents ASAP," one of the officers said. "Do you know how to contact them, Joe?"

"Um." Joe swallowed, trying to get the lump out of it. "Her phone's over on the path. It's got her parents' number in it."

The officer found it easily and picked it up. A moment later, he came back to Joe. "It's got a password on it. Any idea what it is?"

"Hey, leave him alone," Riley said. "I'll call Fenton Hardy and he can give us the Mortons' number. Just leave Joe alone."

Joe vaguely heard an approaching siren, announcing the arrival of the ambulance. Everything seemed dim and far away now, and all Joe could think about was that Iola might – might die. That thought drowned everything else out and it all seemed to fade away.

HBHBHBHBHB

"How are you doing?" Riley's voice broke through the fog in Joe's brain and he shook himself, realizing that he was sitting in the back seat of a police car.

"Is she –" was the first thing Joe managed to say.

"They're taking her to the hospital right now," Riley assured him. "She'll be fine. In fact, getting pressure on that wound as quickly as you did probably saved her life."

Joe looked away from him, feeling tears in his eyes. "It was my fault, though. She didn't want –"

"It wasn't your fault," Riley interrupted him. "You didn't know what was going to happen."

Joe didn't respond.

Riley sighed. "Your parents will be here in a few minutes." He nodded at a set of headlights that slowed down and parked right behind the police car.


	15. Chapter 15

_Author's Note: As always, thank you to all of you who are reading and following this story. I would especially like to thank Barb, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter, as well as everyone who has reviewed earlier chapters._

 _Usually, I prefer to let chapters explain themselves. After all, if they need an explanation, I haven't done my job as a writer. This particular one, though, is a bit of an exception. First of all, it was an incredibly tough chapter to write and I had a lot of information to put into it. Secondly, when you finish this chapter, you just might want to ask what a lot of it had to do with anything. Be assured that there is nothing discussed in this chapter that won't play a part later on in the trilogy._

Chapter XV

That night was undoubtedly the worst in Joe's life. His parents, Frank, Aunt Gertrude all tried their best to comfort him, but he was too shocked and confused to even respond to their well-intentioned attempts. In some ways, they were almost making it worse because they simply didn't understand. Of course, they understood that Iola was a very good, close friend and that Joe felt guilty about, but they didn't know what had happened a moment before.

Sometime at around three in the morning after everything that could be said had been said, Joe told the others that he was going to bed and disappeared into his room. Frank followed soon after, going to his own bedroom, and a few minutes later, Aunt Gertrude and Laura did likewise. That left only Fenton to sit alone in the living room, turning every element of the case over in his mind.

More than that, though, he reflected on that case, fifteen years before. It was one that he had wanted to forget. Neither he nor Laura had talked about it afterwards, and though it couldn't quite be forgotten, it had gotten pushed into a dark corner of Fenton's memory where it wasn't often noticed. Now it was dragged back into the full light, and what was worse was that all day he had been thinking about having to face his sons and tell them the whole thing.

His conversation with Carson Drew earlier that day had shown that things weren't as bad as they might have been – at least they weren't at that point. Now it had taken an abrupt turn for the worst. Of course, he and Laura had spent hours talking about how to tell Frank and Joe – and how much.

Laura didn't think they needed to know the whole story, not just yet, but things were dangerous and they needed to know what they were up against. Naturally, Fenton could simplify the matter and just tell them that these people were out for revenge against him, but that had happened so many times before. It wouldn't explain why this time was so much worse.

Fenton leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling. He wanted to keep Frank and Joe – and their friends, as the case was – safe, but there was only one way to do that. He would have to stop these people.

He cringed at the thought. It wasn't going to be easy – just like it hadn't been easy the first time.

 _Fifteen Years Earlier_

 _Lieutenant Fenton Hardy of the NYPD met Sergeant Mitchell Johnson in the foyer of the address he had responded to. He couldn't help noticing that Johnson looked odd._

 _"Do we know who the victim is?" Fenton asked._

 _Johnson nodded. "Yep. Devin Matthias."_

 _"The mobster?" Fenton shook his head in surprise. "How is he even out of jail_

 _"He was only convicted for complicity with the Irish Mob," Johnson replied. "He got a light sentence and was released on parole a month ago. I suspect he greased some palms to do it." He gave a sarcastic chuckle. "He would have been better off staying in the pen."_

 _"Then it looks like we're dealing with a mob killing," Fenton surmised. "Is it bad?"_

 _Johnson shrugged. "Not as far as murders go. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out who did it. This case has already been solved once."_

 _"What do you mean?" Fenton asked._

 _"You're going to have to see it to believe it," Johnson replied._

 _He led the way to the door opposite them. It opened into a large, but empty room with peeling wallpaper and a large fireplace. The victim was lying on his back with patches of blood on the floor around him._

 _Fenton knelt down next to it, but he didn't see any sign of a wound. "He must have been stabbed or shot in the back," Fenton guessed._

 _"Nope," Johnson replied. "We've already examined the body. There's no a wound on him. The blood, as has been remarked before, must belong to the murderer."_

 _"Who said that?" Fenton asked._

 _"Sherlock Holmes," Johnson told him._

 _Fenton tried with difficulty to not show any sign of annoyance. "Is that a joke?"_

 _"No," Johnson replied. "No. I never thought that I would be called on to solve one of Holmes' cases, but –"_

 _"Johnson, what are you talking about?" Fenton asked as the other officer paused._

 _"Look at that." Johnson pointed out an object lying on the floor where he had found it earlier._

 _Fenton moved closer to look at it and saw that it was a woman's wedding ring. "I still don't see what Sher-"_

 _Johnson interrupted him by pointing dramatically at the wall. "Now look at that."_

 _Scrawled across the wall next to the door in letters as red as blood was the word:_

 _RACHE_

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe lay across his bed in the dark, unable to sleep and wishing he could just wake up. He wished he could talk to someone who could understand this, but – he had never even told anyone how he felt about Iola.

Restlessly, he picked his phone up and started scrolling through the contact list. There had to be somebody. He asked himself why he couldn't just talk to Frank or his mom or his dad, but somehow…

He shook his head. It was ridiculous. He talked to them about everything. Why did this feel so different? Why…

When he got to the Ns in his contact list, he stopped. There was one name there that somehow just seemed like exactly the right person to call at three o'clock in the morning to talk about his troubles.

The phone rang several times, and Joe began to worry it wouldn't be answered. Finally, he heard Nancy Drew's sleepy voice say, "Hello? Joe?"

"Hi, Nancy." He tried to keep his voice as steady as he could.

"Joe, you do realize it's two o'clock in the morning?" Nancy asked.

"It's three here," Joe said in a muted tone. "Nancy, I'm sorry. I just have to talk to somebody. I would talk to Frank or Mom or Dad, but I – I don't know. I just spent several hours having them talk to me and it didn't help. They tried, but there's nothing – they can't change –" Then his voice broke and for the first time since the shooting, he allowed himself to cry.

"Joe, what's wrong? What happened?" Nancy's voice was no longer sleepy, but instead worried.

"It's my fault," Joe told her between sobs. "We shouldn't have been –"

"Hold on," Nancy broke in. "Where are you at? Are you all right?"

"In my room," Joe managed to tell her.

"Okay," Nancy said. "How about you tell me what happened from the beginning?"

Slowly, Joe explained the case and everything that had led up to the events of that night. The story would have been long enough, anyway, but every so often Joe had to stop to take some deep breaths or brush tears away.

When he had finally finished, Nancy was silent for a little while. Finally, she said in a voice that sounded almost like she could cry, "I – I'm sorry, Joe. That's – really rough."

"And the worst part is," Joe went on, "it's my fault. Iola didn't think we should go there that late and I didn't listen."

"Joe, I'm sure you've been told this a thousand times already tonight, but it wasn't your fault," Nancy told him. "You can't control every situation all the time."

"I know." Joe wasn't ready to give it up yet. "But I should have protected her. It – it –"

"You didn't even have time to think," Nancy told him. "You couldn't have protected her, even though you wish you could have. And, besides, you said she told you to look out a second before – it happened. She knew what was happening and she was protecting you."

Joe was silent for a minute. He wasn't sure that Nancy's words were helping or even if they were true.

"It's even worse than that," he went on miserably. "Right before it happened, she – she told me she liked me, and like the idiot that I am, I didn't respond right, and now she thinks –"

"But she's not right?" Nancy concluded when Joe didn't finish the sentence.

"No," Joe replied quickly, even a bit abruptly. "I've liked her for ages that way, but we've always been friends and I didn't want to ruin everything, and now I did anyway. She's never going to believe me. She'll think I just feel bad."

"I doubt that," Nancy assured him. "Okay, to be brutally honest, maybe she'll think that at first, but I'm sure you can quickly convince her otherwise."

"But I –" Joe started to protest, but he realized he didn't have the words to say what he was feeling. Instead, he lamented again, "I should have waited until morning to go there."

"Joe, listen," Nancy told him. "It was a snap decision to go. You didn't know what was going to happen, and it couldn't have been a planned trap because the shooter couldn't possibly have known that you would be there."

"Nance, if it was you or Frank in my place," he said with difficulty, "I guess – I guess I'd say the same things you're saying to me, too. It's just – different when something like this – You guys don't understand –"

He heard Nancy sigh over the phone and was surprised when her voice cracked as she told him, "I won't pretend I know what you feel like right now. Nobody really does but you. But I don't completely not understand."

"You've never had something like this happen to you," Joe protested. "It's fine to try to imagine it, but until you actually have it happen. And whatever you say, Nancy, it is my fault, and you have no idea how it is to know that."

"I know what it's like to deal with guilt, Joe." Nancy's voice still sounded like she was struggling not to cry, and even in the midst of Joe's misery, he had to stop and wonder if maybe Nancy knew what she was talking about.

"Nancy?" Joe asked after she hadn't spoken again for what seemed a long time. "You're not going to leave me hanging there, are you?"

There was a sound that could easily have been sniffling. Finally, Nancy replied, "Never mind. This is about you. We can worry about me some other time."

"Just go ahead," Joe told her. "You or Dad or Mom or Frank have already said everything there is to say. I know it's your family's job to support you and all that, but – I'm just tired of hearing that it wasn't my fault."

"You family's right," Nancy told him.

"You know," Joe said in all the dead seriousness that comes with being exhausted both physically and emotionally, "I count you in there, too. You're the closest thing to a sister I have."

"Really?" Nancy asked.

"Yeah," Joe went on. "I mean, you give the best advice and you make the worst jokes and you're always willing to help with anything even you don't know anything about it and I don't know. I just always thought you'd be a great older sister."

"That's – probably the nicest thing anyone's ever told me." From her tone and the broken pattern of her speech, Joe guessed that she was crying.

"Hey, hold on, you're supposed to be cheering me up," Joe said.

"Yeah, it's just –" Nancy paused. "You know, the last time I mentioned this to anybody, they told me I was pathetic."

"I'll fight them," Joe declared. "Who is it?"

"It was in the third grade. It doesn't matter now," Nancy replied. There was a beat and then she said, "It's just when you said that about me being a good older sister. I – I was going to be an older sister, you know."

"Wait. What?" Joe shook his head in bafflement.

"When my mom – in the crash –" Nancy stopped.

Joe took in a deep breath. He knew that Nancy's mom had been killed in a car accident when Nancy was three, but Nancy had never said any more about it. She had definitely never talked about this aspect of it.

"She was pregnant?" Joe concluded.

"Yeah." Nancy's voice was faint. "It was a girl. I used to imagine a lot what my sister would be like and what she'd look like as she got older. Until someone told me I was pathetic for it. But like I said, we're not talking about me right now. And if we were, it would be more to the point to talk about how for a long time after Mom died, I thought the same thing you do – that it was my fault."

"And how did your three-year-old self decide that?" Joe asked, sounding a little more defensive than he meant to.

"I was at some birthday party that I didn't want to be at," Nancy said. "I had them call my mom and ask her to come pick me up because I was pretending I was sick. She was on her way when it happened. For a long, long time I thought about how if I just hadn't been acting like a spoiled brat –" She let her voice trail off.

"How did you get past it?" Joe didn't question how Nancy could have understood what had even happened at the age of three. He just trusted that she wouldn't make up a story like this.

"It took a long time," Nancy replied. "And a lot of talks with Dad and Aunt Eloise and Hannah. You know, Dad blamed himself, too, for a long time because he was in New York when it happened, working on his internship right after graduating from law school. It takes time – a lot of time. In your case, though, Iola's going to be fine and will probably kill you if she finds out you're blaming yourself. But in the meantime, if you need anything, I'm here."

"Thanks," Joe said.

"Oh, by the way –" Nancy's tone took on a happier, but almost mischievous tone. "If you're going to consider me an honorary sister, I think it's important to point out that I'm the oldest, being older than Frank by a full three months."

Despite everything, Joe had to grin just a little.


	16. Chapter 16

_Author's Note: Thank you once again for reading and following my story. Your support is really appreciated. Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, and Evergreen Dreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter, and to everyone else who has left reviews on previous chapters._

Chapter XVI

It was early morning when Frank got up. He hadn't gotten much sleep – he hadn't even been in bed for that long – but all he seemed to do was doze off for a few minutes and then wake up to toss and turn some more.

He hadn't seen Iola yet, of course. He had given Chet a ride to the hospital when they had heard the news, but Iola's parents had already been contacted and she had already been in emergency surgery. Frank had thought about staying, but Tony, who had come along, had reminded him that Joe was really going to need him.

Frank didn't feel that he'd been much help to Joe, though. He was too much in shock himself to lend any really great support. An imagined picture of Iola, lying on the ground, bleeding, kept coming into his mind and making him feel sick.

With a sigh that seemed a poor expression for everything he was feeling, he pulled on some clothes and walked softly down the hall so that he wouldn't wake anybody up who was still asleep. He paused for a moment outside of Joe's door and listened. The faint sound of Joe snoring came from inside. That was good. At least Joe had managed to get to sleep.

The stairs led down into the front room of the house which also served as a sitting room. Frank jumped when he noticed a movement in one of the chairs, but then he saw that it was just his dad.

"Morning," Frank greeted him. "Have you been up all night?"

Fenton had to rouse himself a bit, as he had evidently managed to sleep a little.

"Sorry to wake you up," Frank said.

Fenton rubbed one of his palms over his eyes. "I was barely asleep. Are you the only other one up?"

"As far as I know," Frank replied. "Dad, we need to get to the bottom of this case right now. If I'm right, and you're Macduff – which last night seems to support – Joe, Mom, and I are going to be next."

Fenton nodded. "There are three things that don't make sense about what happened last night. Before that, all of the murders matched a corresponding murder from the play exactly in terms of murder weapon and the victims. This one didn't. The others all had a quote from the play left at the scene of the crime. This one didn't. The others were all successful. This one wasn't."

"Thank goodness for that," Frank said. "But you're right. This one doesn't fit."

"What were Joe and Iola doing at the Shanth house?" Fenton asked. "Joe wasn't very clear about that last night."

"I don't know," Frank replied. "No one had even mentioned them before in the case. I guess we'll have to ask Joe." He added silently in his head that he hoped Joe would be willing to talk about it.

"Do you know any of the Shanths?" Fenton asked. "I've never even heard the name."

"You haven't?" Frank feigned disbelief. "Seriously, though. I don't know them. I think there's a Terry Shanth who goes to Bayport High. It's an unusual enough last name that it's probably the same family."

Fenton nodded. "We'll definitely need to check it out." There was a brief pause. "Frank, you remember what I was going to talk to you and Joe about yesterday?"

Frank smiled just a little. "Hardly. You never got around to saying _what_ it was. As for remembering that you were going to talk to us about something – I've kind of been dying of curiosity since then."

"No wonder," Fenton replied. "It's not an easy thing to talk about, but you probably already put that together."

"Well -" Frank said.

Fenton looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Frank. "It was a case back in New York, which I think you also already know. It was the worst case I've ever been on, and - Well, and things happened on it that I would do anything to change. I didn't want to go back there."

"I get it, Dad." Frank put a hand on his shoulder. "But if it's connected to this case, you have to tell Joe and me about it."

"That's what your mom and I have been talking about practically all day – and why I called one of the other people involved in it," Fenton told him. "We all agreed that it was similar and they could be related, but what I couldn't figure out was how that was even possible."

"Why would it be so tough for it to be possible?" Frank asked.

"There were two men responsible for the other case." Fenton's face contorted with a painful memory for a fraction of a second. "One is dead and the other was sentenced to twenty years in prison. It's only been fifteen, but I found out that he was a model prisoner and was released on parole two months ago. I guess that's how it's possible."

"Dad," Frank complained. "You didn't tell us about this before?"

"I didn't know that part of it until late yesterday," Fenton explained. He took his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a mug shot on it. "This is him. His name is Dan Moriare. The one who is dead was his brother, Cliff Moriare. They used their last name to advantage."

"What do you mean?" Frank asked.

"Add one more syllable to it, and you get the name of Sherlock Holmes' arch-enemy," Fenton told him.

"Hmm," Frank responded. "I guess I wouldn't have necessarily made the connection."

"It was hard not to, under the circumstances," Fenton replied.

With timing so bad that Frank could hardly believe it wasn't planned, the doorbell rang and interrupted Fenton.

"Who could that be this early?" Frank muttered as he went to answer it. He looked through the peephole and groaned. "Can we pretend we're not home, Dad?"

"Who is it?" Fenton asked.

"Detective Lieutenant Olaf," Frank said. With a resigned motion, he opened the door.

"Frank." Olaf gave him a curt nod. He looked up at Fenton who had stood up and come to the door as well. "Fenton. I'm here to see Joe and get his statement about what happened last night."

"I don't think –" Frank started to protest, but Olaf cut him off.

"I know, I know. He's been through a rough experience and all that. But I need to get a statement as soon as possible, something that Riley failed to do last night, when it should have been done. So just go get him and we'll get this over with."

Frank looked helplessly at his dad. Fenton returned the glance with an exasperated one, but then he admitted, "He's right. You'd better go get him."

HBHBHBHBHB

 _"Joe! Look out!"_

Iola's words echoed through a dark and vague, but unsettling dream. They were followed by a sound like a gunshot, and Joe snapped awake, sweat on his forehead.

For a moment, he sat up in bed, breathing hard. The sound came again, but without the dream to magnify it, it was much softer now. In fact, it was only a gentle knock on the door.

"Joe?" he heard Frank say from the other side of the door. "Are you awake?"

Joe drew in a deep breath. "Yeah."

"Can I come in?" Frank asked.

"Uh, okay," Joe replied.

He quickly got up out of bed, for some reason not wanting Frank to know that he had woken him up. Joe had to admit, though, that he was glad his brother had.

"How are you doing?" Frank asked, coming into the room.

Joe turned away from him and shrugged. He wanted to look strong, and besides he was starting to feel pretty foolish about bothering Nancy in the middle of the night to pour out all his emotions on her. He didn't want to repeat that.

Then a sickening reason for why Frank would be waking him up this early after such a night as last night came to him. "Is – is there any word on Iola?"

"I haven't heard anything," Frank replied. "So that's probably good news. Joe, Olaf is here and wants to get a statement from you."

"Ugh," Joe groaned and sat back down on his bed. "Tell I'm I ran away. Tell him I'm dead. Anything. Just so long as I don't have to talk to him."

"Sorry, Joe, I don't think he'd buy it," Frank told him. "You can at least get dressed and everything first, though."

"Yeah," Joe said dismally. "I'll be down in a minute."

HBHBHBHBHB

When Joe came downstairs a few minutes later, he was determined to say as little as possible to get this over with as quickly as he could. He also didn't want to start crying or anything like that, and short answers would help there.

Olaf's first question did not help in the endeavor. "Tell me what happened last night."

Joe swallowed hard. "You already know. There's not – not much more to it."

Olaf stared at him calculatingly. "Why didn't you go straight home after I took your statement following the Margot murder?"

"I remembered something," Joe replied. When Olaf raised his eyebrow at him, he continued, "Terry Shanth had told me that Margot and Donahue were enemies. Clarissa said they were friends. I wanted to talk to Terry about it."

"Do you suspect Terry of being behind the murders?" Olaf asked.

"I don't know," Joe said.

"Did you talk to Terry?" Olaf continued.

"No," Joe told him. "No one was home."

"So what did you do then?" Olaf insisted.

"We walked back toward the motorcycle and –" Joe didn't complete the sentence, hoping that Olaf would take the hint so that he wouldn't have to say the words aloud.

Clearly, Olaf couldn't take a hint. "And what?"

Joe gritted his teeth, willing himself to keep his voice steady. "And someone shot at us."

"Did you see this person?" Olaf asked.

"Just a glimpse. He was behind me." Joe was speaking almost mechanically now.

" _He_ was?" Olaf repeated. "So it was a man?"

"I don't know," Joe said. "I didn't see them good enough."

"All right," Olaf conceded. "You said the suspect was behind you. Were they to the left or the right?"

"My right," Joe replied. "Facing away from the house."

"How many shots did they fire?" Olaf questioned.

"I don't know." Joe closed his eyes, although it was more in an attempt to block out the memory than to make it clearer. "Several."

"Can't you remember?" Olaf insisted.

"No," Joe said, as evenly as he could.

Olaf wrote something down in his notebook and then looked up. "Was Miss Morton walking in front of or behind you?"

"In front." Joe felt his heart beating faster.

Olaf leaned forward, fixing his eye on Joe. "Then how was it that she got hit and you did not?"

Joe looked at the floor and couldn't find the words to answer.

Frank had been growing more and more impatient throughout the interview, resenting that it had to happen, even if Olaf wasn't being quite as tactless as usual. This question, though, was the last straw.

"How's Joe supposed to know that?" he demanded.

"Stay out of this, Frank," Olaf warned him. "Answer the question, Joe."

Joe felt his eyes get teary. He hoped no one would notice, but he knew they undoubtedly already had. "She – she saw the shooter a second before it happened. She pushed me out of the way." He felt a tear roll down his cheek, and furiously wiped it away with the back of his hand.

"And how did she see the shooter if they were behind her?" Olaf asked, showing no signs of sympathy.

Joe wiped away a couple more tears. On top of everything else he was feeling right now, it was annoying him that he couldn't hold them back. Finally, he managed to say, "We stopped and were talking. She was facing toward me."

"What were you talking about?" Olaf asked.

"None of your business," Joe mumbled in response.

"None of my business?" Olaf repeated, with a humorless half-smile. "When someone tells the police that something's none of their business, it almost always is their business."

"Not this time," Joe replied, his voice a little stronger. "It's none of anybody's business, and it didn't have anything to do with the case."

"I'll be the judge of that," Olaf said.

"Let it be," Fenton broke in. "Joe's told his story and you have his statement. You can go now."

"All right," Olaf grumbled. He started for the door, but then he turned around and looked at each of the Hardys in turn. "One more question. Do any of you know why or how Clarissa Margot has disappeared?"


	17. Chapter 17

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following this story, and especially thank you to max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, and Barb for reviewing the last chapter._

Chapter XVII

"I'm glad that's over," Frank said, closing the door behind Olaf. "I'll never understand how he got to be a cop in the first place."

Fenton had placed a hand on Joe's shoulder, but now he looked up at his older son. "He said that Clarissa's vanished now, too. Where is this going to end?"

"I say it's high time it ended already," Frank replied. "Let's go over everything."

"And we'll begin at the beginning," Fenton added. "With Dan and Cliff Moriare."

Joe brushed the back of his hand across his face again, trying once more to wipe away the tears. "Who?"

"It's that case from years ago that Mom and I think is related to this one," Fenton explained, and he repeated the little he had told Frank earlier. "I can't tell you everything that happened – not yet – but I can tell you the main thing. Fifteen years ago, while I was still on the NYPD, I was assigned to investigate the murder of Devin Matthias."

"Wait," Frank interrupted. "That's the guy in the picture I found on the internet with Margot and Donahue."

Fenton nodded. "He was involved in the Irish Mob. He had just served a term in prison and been released when he was murdered. Margot was also suspected of having ties with the Irish Mob, and it looks like Donahue might have as well. Anyway, the murder was set up to be an exact duplicate of the murder in _A Study in Scarlet_ , the first Sherlock Holmes mystery. Later that day, a letter was delivered to the precinct. The envelope had nothing on it but a stamp and the address of the precinct typed on it. Inside was a sheet of paper with only the words ' _A Study in Scarlet_ ' typed on it."

"It sounds like there could definitely be connections, even if the MO isn't a perfect fit," Frank said.

"There's more than that," Fenton went on. "There were multiple murders, all patterned off one from a Sherlock Holmes story, and after each one the precinct was mailed a letter with nothing but the name of the story typed on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. It took a lot, but we finally learned that two brothers were behind the killings – Cliff and Dan Moriare. Cliff was killed himself before we could capture him, and now that Dan is out of prison, he may be coming back for revenge."

"It seems plausible." Frank nodded. "He must have some grudge against Margot and Donahue, as well as you – and possibly Greg Kelly and Hunter Pierce, too. You know, the other two guys who got killed."

"Kelly is an Irish last name," Joe added, the discussion distracting him for a moment from the events of the night before. "He could be part of the Irish Mob. Do we know anything about them?"

"Not really," Fenton replied. "Chief Collig told me that they were staying at a hotel in town and those were the names they gave the hotel. We don't have any other information on them."

"Did the police search their rooms?" Frank asked.

Fenton nodded. "They didn't find anything, though."

"What are you all doing up so early?" They all looked up at the top of the stairs to see Laura standing there. Without waiting for an answer, she came down and hugged Joe. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine, Mom," he replied, returning the hug.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Laura asked. "Do you want anything?"

"Sure, Mom," Joe told her. He hadn't even thought of eating for quite a long time now and he still wasn't sure he felt like it, but he also wanted to act as normally as he could.

As Laura went to fix breakfast, the doorbell rang again.

"I hope Olaf didn't forget something," Frank grumbled as he went to open it, without even bothering to check who it was.

To his relief – and, in fact, to his delight – it was Callie who was standing at the door. "Hi, Frank," she greeted him with a wan smile. She looked tired all the way around.

"Hey, Callie," he returned the greeting. "What's up? You've heard about Iola, I guess."

Callie nodded. "Tony called me right away. I was at the hospital most of the night with the Mortons. At least until we got some news."

"Is – is she all right?" Joe asked, just barely daring to.

"She'll be fine," Callie assured him. "She can't have any visitors besides her family until tomorrow, though. How are you, Joe?"

"Fine," Joe replied stoically.

Callie looked a little stung by the abrupt reply, but she did her best not to let it show. "Frank." She turned back to him. "When I heard where it happened at, I had to come talk to you. I should have earlier. Maybe I could have kept this from happening. I just didn't think I had any proof."

"What are you talking about, Callie?" Fenton asked.

Callie looked over at him. "I think Terry's behind everything with the school play," she said bluntly. "And I think he's behind – this."

"Why do you say that?" Frank asked her.

"Well, a lot of reasons, I guess," Callie replied. "He and his mom moved her at the beginning of the school year last year, and the first thing he did was join the drama club – which was fine, of course. The problem was that he started trying to take it over, you know? And he always wants the biggest parts, even though he isn't that great of an actor."

"I could maybe believe that's his reason for sabotaging the play, but it doesn't explain the other stuff," Frank said.

"He's also insanely jealous of Jason Reid," Callie continued. "He practically hates him and everyone who gets along with him, which is just about everybody in the drama club since Jason is such a nice guy. So it would make sense that Terry would go after Jason. Besides that, while I was repainting the sets that got ruined, I found Terry's backpack with paint stains on it. That was the main thing that made me suspicious even though it could have an innocent explanation, but then – last night."

"It could be," Frank agreed. "Still, why would he threaten Julie and Clarissa? And why do you think he would have – well, last night. Why couldn't that have been Macbeth?"

"I've heard him talk about how much he hates you guys before," Callie admitted. "It was always when he didn't realize I was there or thought I wasn't listening, but I've never been able to find out why he has such a grudge."

"I think this is worth checking out," Fenton said. "It does seem to fit, and it would explain why this attack didn't fit in with the method of the others. Let's go talk to Terry right away."

Joe squirmed uncomfortably. The thought of going back to the Shanth house made him feel suddenly panicked. "Um, if you guys don't mind, I'll just stick around here."

Fenton and Frank exchanged glances.

"All right, Joe," Fenton said. "We'll come back as soon as we've finished talking to them and then decide what we'll do from there."

Joe only nodded. He watched them leave, with Callie following them, and he felt angry at himself for not going. There hadn't been many times – right now, Joe couldn't think of _any_ times – when he had refused to do a piece of detective work because he was afraid. To make matters worse, this most likely wasn't even going to be dangerous. Openly attacking four people in broad daylight took a lot more guts than shooting at two people from behind in the dark.

HBHBHBHBHB

Frank felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked at the Shanth house, thinking about what had transpired there barely twelve hours earlier. With all the trees and the long distance from the street to the house, it was a perfect place for an ambush.

The whole front of the house was still marked off as a crime scene. Because of that, the Hardys and Callie had to go around to the back and knock on the door there.

The door was opened by a woman in her late thirties or early forties. Though she looked mildly surprised to have visitors, her expression changed to one of utter astonishment when she saw Fenton.

Confused by her reaction, Frank also looked at his dad, only to find that he looked startled and dismayed.

The woman smoothed over her surprise and asked, "What do you want?"

"Mrs. Shanth?" Fenton asked.

"That's my name," the woman replied, a little more defensively than seemed necessary to Frank.

"I'm Fenton Hardy," Fenton introduced himself.

"I know who you are," Mrs. Shanth snapped. Then she added a bit more mellowly, "I read the papers."

"We want to talk to your son, Terry," Fenton explained. "Is he home right now?"

"No." Mrs. Shanth seemed to suddenly drop her defensive attitude, and her face contorted to try to keep back tears. "He's the one who did it, isn't he? I tried. I really tried with him. But they wouldn't leave him alone."

"Who wouldn't?" Frank asked, feeling that he'd somehow missed part of the conversation.

"Those men," Mrs. Shanth replied vaguely. "I don't know who they were, but I knew they were getting him into trouble."

"Are you sure you didn't know who they were?" Fenton asked her gently.

Mrs. Shanth shook her head. "It's not what you think. But he always said that if he got the chance –"

"The chance to do what?" Callie interjected eagerly as Mrs. Shanth paused.

Mrs. Shanth began to sob. "If he got the chance, he'd get even with Fenton Hardy."

Frank and Callie both cast bewildered looks at Fenton, but he seemed to completely understand.

"What's going to happen to him?" Mrs. Shanth asked

"I don't know," Fenton replied gently. "He's still young, though. If he gets the help he needs, he might still be all right. For now, we've got to find him before he can hurt anyone else. Do you have any idea where he is?"

By now, Mrs. Shanth had sunk down so that she was sitting on the floor, crying. "He used to meet those men someplace over on Dunsinane."

"Dunsinane?" Frank repeated. "That can't be a coincidence."

Fenton nodded. "Let's get over there. We'll have to pick up Joe on the way."


	18. Chapter 18

_Author's Note: Thank you so much for continuing to read and follow! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers (yes – Frank and Callie are a couple in this story), Barb, EvergreenDreamweaver, and max2013 for your reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter XVIII

"Okay, so I'm really confused right now," Callie said. "Is Terry the madman who's running around murdering people or what's going on? I felt like I missed a few things while we were talking to his mother."

She was seated next to Frank in the back seat of Fenton Hardy's car, while Joe was in the front passenger seat and Fenton was driving. Their destination was the house where Frank, Chet, and Tony had met Helena Markovich the day before.

"I don't think so," Fenton told her. "I do think he knows a good deal more about the killer than we do, and is probably involved somehow. I also think there's a good chance that he is responsible for the sabotage to the school play and was the shooter last night."

Joe flinched, but then he turned around in his seat to look at Callie. "How does Terry get along with Clarissa?"

"Clarissa doesn't give him the time of day," Callie replied. "Although that's not unusual. I guess I never really paid any attention to how Terry treats Clarissa. Why?"

"She told –" Joe paused for a second, willing his voice to remain steady. "She told Iola that she got a letter from either the prankster or the murderer – whichever it was signed their name as Macbeth - warning her to leave before she got hurt and strongly implying that the writer had a crush on her."

Fenton parked a couple of blocks down from the house. "All right. Let's move carefully so that if Terry is here we won't scare him off."

" _Or scare him into doing anything_ ," Frank added silently to himself.

Without talking, the group of four walked up to the front door. As they approached it, they saw that it was ajar. Exchanging glances to make sure everyone else was on board, Fenton pushed the door the rest of the way open and they all cautiously entered.

Immediately, Frank saw that it was very different from his visit there the day before. There was absolutely no furniture or anything on the walls. Even the rug on the floor had been taken away.

"It doesn't look like anybody's here," Callie said, whispering just in case she was wrong.

"He could be in another room," Frank suggested cautiously. "If he is, it will be dangerous to go around looking for him." He looked at Callie uncertainly.

"I'm fine," Callie assured him.

Keeping together, they began to search through the house. It was small, and so it didn't take long to thoroughly investigate the first floor. The basement was only one room, and it also was empty.

"I guess that was a false lead," Joe said in discouragement.

"Wait." Frank pointed up at the ceiling. "There's an attic."

Joe and Fenton gave him a boost so that he could open the trapdoor into the attic. Frank braced himself for a cloud of dust to fall from it, but that didn't happen. He climbed up through the hole and used his phone as a flashlight to look around. What he saw made him freeze in astonishment.

"Is there anything up there, Frank?" Fenton asked.

"Uh, yeah," Frank replied.

"Well? What is it?" Callie crowded closer under the open trapdoor to try to see into the attic.

"I'm not completely sure," Frank said.

The attic was small, but there was enough headspace to stand up straight. The walls were unfinished but were completely covered by photographs, newspaper clippings, and maps. It looked like a TV conspiracy theorist's apartment.

There were photos of Brian Donahue, Simeon Margot, Hunter Pierce, and Greg Kelly, both alive and after they were dead. There were also photos of what Frank immediately recognized as both the Donahue and the Margot houses. Newspaper clippings from the days that the murders took place were tacked up next to the photos, and a map of Bayport had pins in it at the addresses.

A chill ran down Frank's spine as he also noticed candid shots of himself, Joe, and their parents. A print of the picture of Evan that had been sent to the Hardy house was also there, along with one of Clarissa. Scrawled on the wall wherever it showed between photos and clippings were quotes from _Macbeth_ , both ones that had been left at murder scenes and others that Frank recalled belonging to the witches or apparitions they had conjured, such as "All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king thereafter" and "None of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth."

All of that, chilling though it may be, seemed self-explanatory. The strangest thing pinned to the wall was a set of four mug shots, along with what looked like lists of convictions. The mug shots were all men, but other than that Frank couldn't see much from where he was standing.

He took a few steps forward to get a closer look and stumbled over something that clanked loudly. Quickly flashing his light at it, he had to whistle in surprise. It was a sword with four daggers piled up on it.

"Come on, Frank, what's going on up there?" Joe called up.

Frank looked down through the trapdoor at the others. "Someone either set up a red herring for us to follow or they handed us the solution of this mystery on a silver platter."

After he had explained what was in the attic, Fenton knit his brow thoughtfully. "Whichever it is, we should call in the police and have them take a look at this."

HBHBHBHBHB

Fenton sat down at the kitchen table in the Hardy home with a weary sigh. Taking a short break from lunch preparations, Laura sat down next to him and reached out for his hand.

"How's Joe been doing this morning?" she asked.

"He seemed all right while we were investigating," Fenton replied. "Now that we've got to wait on the police, he's up in his room. I don't know what he's doing."

Laura frowned. It wasn't like Joe to retreat into his room. "Is Callie still here?"

"Yeah. She's with Frank on the front porch, talking over the case." Fenton punctuated the sentence with a wink, trying to be cheerful.

A shadow of a smile crept over Laura's face, but she quickly turned the conversation to something that was more heavily on her mind. "Did you find out about that Moriare person yet?"

Fenton shrugged. "His parole officer says that he hasn't left Brooklyn and is in every way keeping up his appearance as a model prisoner, or rather parolee now."

"Well, that's good," Laura said, but she didn't sound convinced. "It's just this whole case. I don't know. There's something about it."

HBHBHBHBHB

Callie twisted a strand of her hair around her finger as she sat next to Frank on the steps of the front porch.

"I just don't get it," she said finally. "Why would anyone hurt Iola? She's never hurt anyone."

"I don't know that it was Iola they were trying to hurt," Frank replied grimly.

"I think it was," Callie told him. "Think about it. Everyone else these people have tried to kill, they've killed. I don't think they make careless mistakes like this."

Frank didn't respond. He had already been thinking that the attack on Iola and Joe was possibly someone else besides Macbeth. But what if – Frank suddenly sat bolt upright.

"What is it?" Callie asked, looking at him in surprise.

"Quick, what's the storyline of _Macbeth_?" Frank replied.

"Macbeth starts murdering people so he can become king and stay that way," Callie said. "You know that, though."

"But who convinces him to do it?" Frank continued.

"Lady Macbeth," Callie answered. "Do you think there's a woman behind all of this?"

"Yes," Frank said, "but not necessarily Lady Macbeth. If someone was going to orchestrate a plot based on the play, there's one part that they would have to take for themselves. The three witches."

"So that fortune-teller woman," Callie concluded. "What was her name?"  
"Helena Markovich," Frank told her.

"But so what?" Callie asked. "That doesn't get us anywhere new. You've suspected her from the moment you found out about her, haven't you?"

"Yeah." Frank's tone was unconvincing. "I guess I have. It's just there was something about her. She's an obvious person to suspect, but somehow an elusive Macbeth, or some guy who got of jail and wants revenge on Dad, or Terry all seemed like more likely suspects."

"Are you saying she really is a witch and she cast a spell over you to make you not suspect her?" Callie teased.

Frank shook his head. "I don't know. I guess not. Obviously not. What I'm getting at is, what if there is no Macbeth? Or what if Macbeth is just a pawn in some larger plan?"

"That would be a twist," Callie said. "But how would that explain what happened to Iola? And then there's all the stuff with the school play. How does it fit together?"

Frank slumped against the edge of the porch railing. "For a second there, I almost thought I saw it, but I guess not."

HBHBHBHBHB

Fenton absentmindedly played with a pencil while he listened to his wife's theory. What she said was plausible, he had to admit, but if that was the case…

"Laura," he interrupted her, "Terry's mother recognized me. What if it's her?"

Laura bit her lip. "She and Terry could both be in on it, but if then why would she practically admit it to you? And why would have she waited this long? I still think my theory's the most likely."

"Maybe," Fenton admitted. "I'd just hoped I'd seen the last of her. Even then, her eyes -" He shuddered.

Laura held his hand a little tighter. "Don't think about it."

"I can't help it," Fenton confided. "Ever since this came up again, every time I close my eyes, that night –" His voice trailed off and he shivered. As if he was trying to block out the memories, he covered his face with his hands.

Without a moment's hesitation, Laura got up from her chair and went to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around him. "I know, I know. There wasn't anything you could have done."

Fenton didn't reply. It had been a terrible shock to have all of this come back to haunt him. And the worst of it was that now it had come back to hurt his sons.

His phone jingled, threatening to bring him back to the here and now of reality. He wasn't quite ready for that yet. "Who is it?" he asked Laura.

Laura glanced down at the screen. "Ezra. He must have some news."

Resignedly, Fenton picked up the phone and answered the call.

"I've got some news for you, Fenton," Chief Collig said. "I don't know what it means, but maybe you can put it together. There were fingerprints in that attic, and, besides a couple of Frank's, they all belonged to the four men in the mug shots."

"And who are they?" Having to shift back into being a detective again was calming Fenton's nerves, if only for the moment.

"Three of them have fliers out on them from the FBI for hiring themselves out as assassins," Collig explained. "Their names are Virgil Brown, Ken Faquary, and Trevor Thanning." He paused before continuing. "I don't see any reason why they would be behind these killings on their own. My theory is that the fourth man hired them to help him."

"And who is he?" Fenton asked.

"His name's Earl O'Riley," Collig told him.

"The name sounds familiar," Fenton said, a sinking feeling in his stomach as his subconscious made the connections before he could.

"I thought it would," Collig replied. "You worked on the Devin Matthias murder case, you told me? Rumor had it then that O'Riley was next in line to take Matthias's place in the Mob, but a certain Greg Kelly beat him out."


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's Note: As always, thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this story, and especially to EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers for leaving reviews on the last chapter! Things are building up to the climax now, and so there are only a few chapters left (of Part 1, that is!)._

Chapter XIX

The entire Hardy family, as well as Callie, listened eagerly to Fenton's account of what Chief Collig had told him.

"So," Fenton concluded the story, "Greg Kelly, one of the murdered men, was an enemy of this Earl O'Riley. It's starting to make sense now. If this is all over a feud between members of the Irish Mob, and we already know that Margot and Donahue had connections there –"

"But it can't just be about the Irish Mob," Joe protested. "We don't have anything to do with it. We've never even run into it on one of our cases before. And Macbeth has made it pretty clear that we're also on his target list."

"That's right," Callie agreed. "And what about the school play? That couldn't have anything to do with the Mob, and it seems a pretty big coincidence that both cases would involve Clarissa, Evan, and _Macbeth_."

Fenton sighed in frustration. "I know. I said it's starting to make sense. It's still got a long way to go. Chief Collig wants me to meet him down at the precinct. Maybe we can get something figured out working together."

"Want Joe and me to come, Dad?" Frank asked.

After a moment's hesitation, Fenton shook his head. "No. Collig and I can talk it over just fine. Why don't you keep working at tracking down Terry in the meantime?"

He left after that, leaving both of his sons very much so confused and a bit disappointed even. They both couldn't help wondering why Fenton was still continuing to be so secretive, and whether it still had to do with that past case. Considering the latest development, that seemed likely. But what could have possibly happened that would still have their father still so shaken up after fifteen years?

Joe retreated into a corner of the living room to think about it. He knew that the worst thing that had ever happened on one of his own cases had already happened on this one – just last night, in fact. Something almost like a chill struck him as he wondered whether this would still be bothering him so badly fifteen years ago. If it got brought up again, he supposed it probably would. Then maybe whatever had happened to Fenton was something like that.

As the realization of what that would mean struck him, Joe glanced up at his mom who was on the other side of the room, talking to Frank and Callie. No, that couldn't be it. Nothing that terrible could have happened to Laura. Joe would have remembered it if it had, even if he was only two at the time. And besides, he reminded himself, Aunt Gertrude hadn't known what this was about either. If it had been that obvious, she would have figured it out.

Callie was explaining to Laura everything she knew about Terry. Frank only half listened. He had already heard it, and Joe going off into a corner by himself distracted him. Under ordinary circumstances, if anything, it would have been him going off to think by himself instead of Joe. They had to get this wrapped up, and the sooner the better.

Terry could make a plausible suspect in the attack on Iola and Joe, Frank mused. Especially considering what his mother had said about him hating Fenton and his family. It could have been a moment of sudden, wild passion when he saw one of his perceived enemies at his house. Or it could have been calculated. Maybe Terry figured in view of everything that Macbeth – whoever that was – would take the blame if he killed Joe. It was a serious thing to accuse a seventeen-year-old of, but Terry also couldn't just be disregarded because of his age.

Additionally, Terry would also make sense as the saboteur of the school play. He evidently was jealous of everyone or simply didn't like them and – if he was the one who shot Iola – anyone unbalanced enough to do that could have easily done everything that happened with the play.

The one place Terry didn't fit was actually being Macbeth. There was no connection that Frank could see between him and any of the murdered men. O'Riley seemed a better suspect for that, but that option seemed too easy. Besides, it didn't explain why Terry would have been hanging around with some men on Dunsinane Street, as his mother had told them.

Frank shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He had the feeling that the solution to it was just barely out of reach and if he tried a little harder, it might suddenly become clear. Maybe the clue was in what he already knew about the murders.

Donahue, Margot, Kelly, and Pierce were all apparently connected to the Irish Mob in some way. They were all in Bayport when they got killed. Frank paused when he came to that point. Was that a coincidence or was there some reason they had come? Whatever reason they might have had, there was no way for Frank to figure it out just now, so he went on.

Donahue was cast as Duncan. He had been killed with a dagger in his sleep, just like Duncan. Kelly and Pierce were the sentries, and they had been killed with a sword near Donahue's house, just like the sentries had been killed just outside Duncan's chambers with a sword. A bit of a stretch perhaps, but it was still possible. Margot was killed by three men while he was on his way home with his daughter, which was exactly what happened to Banquo, except that Banquo's child was a son. The puzzling thing was that Fenton had evidently been cast in the role of Macduff, although Frank didn't see the connection to the other four men. On the other hand, this could –

"Oh, shoot," he said out loud.

Callie and Laura both looked at him, surprise and curiosity in their faces.

"What's wrong?" Callie asked.

"I just realized that everyone who's been killed so far not only were killed with the same weapon that was used on their character in the play, but also in as close to the same place and circumstances that the killer could manage," Frank replied. "Considering the theory that Dad's Macduff and considering that Macduff's family was murdered in their home while Macduff was away –"

"Home might not be the healthiest place for us right now," Joe finished the conclusion.

"Well, then let's go someplace else right away," Laura said hastily. "Gertrude's still visiting a friend – I'll call her and tell her not to go home for a while at any rate."

Without any further discussion, all four of them left the house and got into Frank and Joe's shared car. Frank started driving with no particular destination in mind.

Callie had climbed into the front seat next to him, while Joe and Laura were in the back. With a shiver, Callie glanced over her shoulder at the Hardy house as if she expected to see a murderer in the front lawn.

"How long are you going to have to be away from your house?" she asked. "You can't just drive around Bayport of the rest of your lives."  
"We'll get a police guard to stay at the house or something," Frank replied. "Besides we're going to catch these people and put a stop to this before any more time passes." He glanced in his rearview mirror at Joe, who was staring through the window absently.

Laura managed a weak smile. "I never thought marrying a detective would mean having to be away from home so much just to stay safe."

"I guess it's more interesting than being married to a doctor," Callie tried to joke back.

Frank and Laura both tried to grin, though neither they nor Callie really thought the joke was funny. Joe didn't even seem to have heard, so absorbed in his own thoughts he was.

"Let's go get something to eat," Frank suggested. "We can call Dad and tell him what's going on while we're at the restaurant. That way, even if I'm just being paranoid, we'll at least get a meal out of it."

Laura and Callie agreed. When Joe was pressed for an answer, he merely grunted his approval, even though he didn't feel like eating.

He didn't really feel like doing anything that wouldn't contribute to putting the villain who had shot Iola in prison. He was so tired, thinking was a strain and his head ached miserably. His hip was sore from hitting the ground the night before. Every loud noise made him catch his breath and his heart seem to stop as he seemed to hear Iola's warning shout and see the flash of the gun's muzzle again.

He shook himself. He was still in the car with Frank and his mom and Callie, and Iola was going to be all right. And they were going to catch the person who did it to her. He had to keep telling himself that.

HBHBHBHBHB

The restaurant that Frank chose and the others agreed to was a small, out of the way one where they hoped they wouldn't be noticed. They were just walking in the door when Laura's phone rang.

"Hello, dear," she said, seeing that it was her husband calling.

"Laura, are the boys with you?" Fenton asked tersely.

"Yes, they're both right here," Laura told him. "We're not at home, though. Frank thought that –"

"Thank goodness," Fenton interrupted her. "I was worried for a minute there."

"Frank thought that, since in the play Macduff's family is killed at their home while Macduff is away, it would be better for us to leave for the time being," Laura explained.

"Good," Fenton said. "I had the same thought, but then I had a moment of panic that I would be too late to warn you."

"Why?" Laura asked. Some instinct made her tense at her husband's tone.

"Because there's been another killing, and it would ruin the pattern of following a sped-up version of the play's timeline if – if nothing had happened to you and the boys," Fenton told her.

"Oh no," Laura murmured. "Who is it now?"

There was a beat of silence before Fenton replied, "Rodonna Shanth."

"Terry's mother?" Laura asked. "But I thought –"

"I know," Fenton agreed. "I thought the same thing. I don't know what to think now."

"There's no doubt that it's related, I suppose," Laura said.

"No," Fenton replied. "She apparently – Well, under ordinary circumstances, it would look like suicide. With everything else that has been going on, I don't think that's very likely. Anyway, there was a note next to her which identified her as Lady Macbeth and said, 'Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life.'"

"But if she was behind it all, maybe somehow she thought she had to do this," Laura suggested. "I mean, if she had anything to do with this at all, she couldn't have been in her right mind."

All during this conversation, Frank, Joe, and Callie had been casting curious glances at each other and at Laura, wondering what had happened now. Frank had just made up his mind to interrupt the conversation and ask when his own phone rang.

He looked down at the screen to see Phil Cohen's name on it. "Hey, Phil. What's –"

"Listen, Frank," Phil broke in, excitement showing in his voice. "Where are you guys?"

"Jake's Grill," Frank replied. "Why?"

"Biff and I are outside your house," Phil told him. "And I think there are some burglars in it."


	20. Chapter 20

_Author's Note: Once again, thank you for reading and following this story. It really means a lot to me. Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, Barb, and max2013 for your reviews on the last chapter. They made me so excited to share the rest of the story with you, that I'm posting this chapter a day early!_

Chapter XX

"Are you sure, Phil?" Frank gripped his phone a little tighter at Phil's announcement that there were intruders in the Hardy house.

"Positive," Phil told him. "We saw one of them through the window."

"Okay, stay right where you are," Frank said. "Don't go inside, but keep an eye on them if they try to leave. We'll call the police, and Joe and I will be there right away."

By now, Joe's and Callie's attention had been shifted from Laura's startling conversation with Fenton to Frank's urgent-sounding conversation with Phil. Even Laura was making a definite effort to try to hear what Frank was saying over her husband's words.

"Mom, tell Dad that Phil and Biff are outside our house and there's somebody inside there," Frank said the second he had ended the call. "We need some police over there right away and tell him that Joe and I are headed back there, too."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Laura asked.

"Just to make sure they don't get away," Frank told her. "Besides, the cops will probably be there before us anyway. Come on, Joe."

"Can I come?" Callie asked.

Frank's mind raced to what had happened to Iola just the night before. There was no concrete reason to think the same would happen to Callie, but still, he couldn't risk it.

"I need you to stay here with Mom," Frank told her. "Besides, you can call your parents and ask them to give you both a ride home."

He and Joe didn't wait for any further argument as they rushed out to the car. They were both too tense to speak as they neared their house.

Just as they reached it, they saw Phil's car pull out into the street in front of them. Biff leaned part of the way out of the passenger window and waved at them to follow.

"They're getting away!" he shouted.

Frank pressed down on the gas pedal to gather enough speed to follow Phil. "You'd better call Dad and tell him what's happening," he told Joe. "He should still be with Chief Collig."

Joe nodded. He went through all his pockets, but didn't find his phone. "I must have forgot it again."

Frank dug into his own pocket and pulled out his phone. He tossed it to Joe.

Joe placed the call to his father. As soon as Fenton answered, he said, "Dad, are you and the police on your way?"

"Yes," Fenton told him. "Stay away from the house, Joe."

"That's not a problem at the moment," Joe replied. "The guys Biff and Phil saw left and we're following them."

Fenton gave an exasperated groan. "Okay, but keep a safe distance. Where exactly are you?"

"Elm Street." Joe glanced over at the addresses on the houses they were passing. "Fourteen hundred block, going west."

"Stay on the phone and tell us any time you make a turn," Fenton told him. "We'll try to get a patrol car to intercept the suspects. What does their vehicle look like?"

"I don't actually know," Joe admitted. "We're following Phil who's following them."

Ahead of them, a silver Toyota made a right turn. Evidently not expecting that, Phil screeched around the corner without signaling. Frank also turned his car to follow.

"Oh, okay, actually it looks like it's a silver Toyota," Joe told his dad. "And we just turned right onto Madison."

The suspects must have realized they were being followed because they made a number of sudden, unexpected turns. As Joe reported each one, he could hear his father's voice grow more and more frustrated. It was easy for Joe to tell why – even if the suspects' maneuvers didn't shake Phil and Frank off their trail, they were making it extremely difficult for any police officers to intercept them.

"We just turned left onto West Thirty-Ninth," Joe reported to his dad.

"Okay," Fenton said. "It sounds like he might be headed out –" His voice suddenly cut off.

"Dad? Hello, Dad?" Joe looked at the phone's screen and saw that the call had been ended and that there was no cell reception. "Stupid dead spots."

"Just call Dad again as soon as we have reception again," Frank said, concentrating too hard on following the Toyota to bother about his repetitive sentence.

He had barely finished speaking when the cars ahead made another right turn onto Hamilton Boulevard. The name rang a bell in his mind.

"Joe, this street leads right out of town," he said. "Do you know what it turns into once it gets there?"

Joe thought for a second. "Birnam." The word seemed to echo with the sounds of fate as he recalled that the name was significant in _Macbeth_.

"Is there any reception at all?" Frank asked. "I think it's safe to assume where they're headed."

"One bar," Joe reported. "I'll give it a try." The ringback tone stuttered once or twice and then the call completely disconnected. "Nothing."

It wasn't until they were passing out of the city limits that there was enough reception for Joe to place a call.

"What happened?" Fenton asked as he answered the call.

"We went through a dead spot," Joe told him. "We're headed out of town on Hamilton. You know, that turns into Birnam."

"Great." Fenton sounded as if the significance was not lost on him. "Don't get too close. Once you're out of town, these people might get bolder."

Frank heeded the advice and hung back as much as he could. Phil seemed to notice, and he also slowed down. The chase went on for perhaps another fifteen minutes, with the pursuers staying just close enough to keep the pursued in sight.

By the time that they were well out of town, it was growing dusk. In a way, this made it easier to see the car ahead of them, as its taillights showed up clearly in the gathering darkness. As Frank crested a hill, another set of light appeared ahead of them – the flashing blue and red lights of a police car.

"Do you suppose Collig got some of his men around in front of these guys?" Joe asked.

"Looks like it," Frank responded. "At least, I hope that's what they're doing up ahead there."

As the lights grew closer, Frank and Joe were able to hear the siren that accompanied them. Then another sound came from ahead – the harsh, explosion-like sound of a car crashing.

"Hurry up, Frank!" Joe urged him, overeager to see what had happened.

Frank needed little encouragement as he pressed the pedal of his car down harder. In front of them, Phil's car had also sped up, as he and Biff evidently were thinking the same thing as Frank and Joe.

Within minutes, they had reached the scene of the crash. From what they could see, it looked like the police car had blocked the road and the Toyota that they were chasing had swerved to miss it, and had wound up in the ditch.

The officers were under cover behind their car. When they saw the four boys arrive, one of them yelled at them to stay back. In obedience, the boys climbed out of their cars on the opposite side from the wrecked car, keeping out of sight.

"It would be Olaf," Joe grumbled as he recognized the voice of the officer who had shouted at them.

"He's got a point, though," Frank admitted. "Those guys might not be too banged up to start shooting."

As if to back up Frank's statement, there was a volley of shots from the car in the ditch. It was still upright, and the occupants apparently hadn't had any trouble getting out.

"How many of them are there?" Frank asked.

"We counted five of them," Biff told him excitedly. "Four came out of the house, and one of them was already in the car ready to get away. You'll never guess who the driver was."

"That Terry Shanth kid," Phil said, not giving the Hardys a chance to guess. "What's he doing with these guys?"

Several voices started shouting. Joe dared to peer around the back of the car and saw that two of the killers had come out from their cover with their hands up. They were shouting at the police not to shoot, their accomplices were yelling at them not to be idiots, and Olaf was shouting for them to come slowly and keep their hands in sight.

There was another burst of gunfire from behind the silver Toyota. The two murderers who were surrendering hit the ground, but Joe had the impression that they dove there to get out of the line of fire rather than because they were hit.

Frank grabbed Joe by the shoulder and yanked him back. "Stay down."

The shots lasted another thirty seconds before there was a loud groan. Then the gunfire died down. Finally, a voice shouted clearly, "Okay, okay. We give up."

Joe wrenched himself free from Frank's grasp and looked again at the scene. Another of the killers had stood up behind the car and put his hands on the roof. From the mugshots he had seen, Joe guessed that this was O'Riley.

"Faquary's shot," O'Riley said. A groan from behind the car seemed to confirm this. O'Riley held his hands up. "See? I don't have a piece."

Olaf and the other officer with him held a brief, whispered conference, no doubt trying to decide whether this was a trick or not. While they were debating, Joe saw someone dash from behind the suspects' car and disappear into the trees and the twilight.

"Terry," Joe said. He couldn't let Terry get away. He had a gut feeling that he had been the one to shoot Iola. He had to get him. Without wasting another second thinking about it, Joe ran after him.

"Joe, you idiot! What are you doing?" he heard Frank shout from behind him, and at the same instant he heard Olaf add, "Hardy! Get back here!"

Not paying any attention to them, Joe kept running. Ahead of him, he saw Terry look over his shoulder and then start running faster. Joe was determined not to lose him, and sped up himself.

The chase lasted for what seemed like a long time. Terry was fast, and even though Joe had won awards for cross-country in school, he was having a hard time keeping up with him. Every moment, he worried that he would lose sight of him.

Then the trees started to thin. Terry started running up a hill and was finally showing signs of tiring. Putting on a final burst of speed, Joe closed the gap between them. He dove at Terry, tackling him to the ground, but the slope of the hill was steep enough that Joe rolled several yards back down. Terry, however, held his position.

Both of them scrambled to their feet, but Terry was just little bit quicker. Before Joe had quite gotten his balance, Terry pulled a handgun out from under his jacket. Joe saw it and froze in place.

"You've ruined everything," Terry said, his face contorted with rage. "The whole plan is ruined. You were supposed to die."

"Sorry," Joe replied sarcastically, although his heart was pounding. This wasn't the way this was supposed to go. He was supposed to catch Terry – maybe have to fight him and get the chance to beat him up – and make him pay for what he did to Iola. Now – Now he was going to die, and this was his fault too. Just like last night had been.

Joe fought the wave of panicked despair that was threatening to engulf him. If he could stall for time, surely someone had followed him when he took off after Terry. He only needed a few more seconds, maybe a few more minutes.

"Why, Terry?" Joe asked. "Why are you doing this? What do you have against us?"

"What do I have against you?" Terry fairly shrieked. "What _don't_ I have against you? What _haven't_ you done to me? What haven't you all done to me? You, Donahue, Margot – everyone deserved what they got."

This non-answer, spoken in the way it was, and with a gun trained at him whirled around in Joe's mind in confusion, but he knew he had to say something. Praying that someone was coming, Joe thought of a response that might bring Terry back to earth. "Even your mother?"

Something, some emotion, flickered over Terry's face like a spasm. When he spoke, he was quieter. "She was weak. She couldn't take it anymore, so she killed herself. The weak don't deserve to survive."

Joe shook his head in astonishment at this heartless answer, but he had to keep talking. "What about Iola? She never did anything to you."

"No," Terry admitted. "I didn't mean to hurt her, but that was your fault. You were the one I meant to hit, but you were too much of a coward." His finger twitched as he prepared to pull the trigger. "But you don't have your girlfriend to hide behind this time."


	21. Chapter 21

_Author's Note: Thank you all once again for reading and following this story! I'd especially like to thank BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and Barb for your reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter XXI

"Joe, you idiot! What are you doing?" Frank shouted, making an unsuccessful attempt to grab his brother before he could go dashing off after Terry. He was about to run after Joe, but Phil grasped his arm and held him back.

"It won't help anything for you to be an idiot, too," Phil told him.

Phil was right, of course, but – "Someone's got to stop him," Frank argued.

"I'll get him," Olaf said. He turned to the other officer, "Get these men in handcuffs and make sure none of these other kids do anything dumb."

Fortunately, O'Riley and his compatriots really did intend to surrender. Officer Jamison had them all handcuffed within seconds, and then called on his radio to update his back-up on what had happened and ask for an ambulance for the wounded Faquary.

Jamison lined the three uninjured men up next to the police car. "If any of these guys moves an inch, say something," he requested of Frank, Biff, and Phil. Then he bent down to take a look at Faquary's wound.

Faquary was lying on the ground, groaning and sobbing with a hand clasped over his shoulder. Despite this, his shirt and his hand were both covered in blood.

"Quit crying," Jamison told him after he looked at the wound. "You're not going to bleed out before the ambulance gets here." He glanced up at the three boys. "Could one of you hold pressure over this wound? I've got to deal with these other three."

"Sure," Phil volunteered.

Jamison took a first aid kit out of the police car and handed some bandages to Phil. Then he turned his attention to patting down O'Riley and the other two. Once he had assured himself that they didn't have any other weapons besides the guns that they had already given up, he made them get into the backseat of the car.

Frank glanced over his shoulder in the direction where Joe had disappeared. There wasn't a sound from there. That was a good thing, Frank reasoned. Maybe it meant that Terry wasn't armed after all. If that was the case, Joe and Olaf together shouldn't have any trouble capturing him.

"You have the right to remain silent," Officer Jamison was saying to the three prisoners in the backseat of the police car. When he had finished reading them their rights, he leaned against the car with his arms folded and looked in the direction of Bayport. "Back-up should be coming any minute."

"Look, I got something to say," one of the prisoners, Virgil Brown, spoke up. "I didn't want to have anything to do with this whole crazy scheme. They blackmailed me into it. It's not my fault."

"Who blackmailed you?" Jamison asked.

"O'Riley and the woman and the kid," Brown whined.

"Don't try to pin this on me," O'Riley protested. "It wasn't me. It was the woman and the kid. They thought the whole thing up. I told them it was crazy, but they wouldn't listen."

"Will you two just shut up?" the third prisoner, Trevor Thanning, said.

"What woman?" Jamison asked. "Rodonna Shanth?"

"Who?" O'Riley replied, his face genuinely blank.

"Helena Markovich?" Frank added, recalling his suspicions about her.

"The fortune teller?" O'Riley said. "No. The kid's mother."

"That was Rodonna Shanth," Jamison informed him.

"No, it –" O'Riley started to protest, but Thanning broke in, "If that's the name she gave you, then that's the only name we know."

"You need to work on your lying," Jamison told him. "It's not very convincing."

"I'm not saying another word until I have a lawyer here," Thanning said sulkily. "And if these two had a brain in their heads, they wouldn't say anything either."

Jamison fixed his eyes on Brown. "What did you mean that you were blackmailed into this?"

Brown swallowed. "Nothing. I want a lawyer."

While Jamison tried to devise another strategy to get his prisoners to talk, several sets of headlights illuminated the scene as three more police cars arrived. Chief Collig and Fenton Hardy got out of one of them.

"Are you all right?" Fenton asked Frank right away. "Where's Joe?"

Frank looked back toward the darkened trees where Joe and Olaf had disappeared a few minutes before. "He went chasing after Terry. Olaf went too. We haven't heard anything from them since."

"Is the ambulance coming?" Jamison asked. "I've got a wounded suspect here."

"It's on its way," Collig told him. He pointed at two of his officers. "You take care of him."

Phil seemed more than a little glad to be relieved of his post. Making a face, he tried to wipe the blood off his hands with a handkerchief that one of the officers handed him.

"All right," Collig said to his men. "I'm going to need another one of you to stay here and take notes. The rest of you start searching for Olaf, Joe, and the other suspect."

While the officers obeyed, Collig turned his attention to Jamison and his prisoners. "Have they said anything?"

Jamison repeated the bits of information he had gotten from the suspects. "Now all they'll say is that they won't talk without a lawyer."

Collig nodded grimly. "Bring Brown over here."

"I won't talk without a lawyer," Brown protested when he had been brought out of earshot of the other prisoners.

"Dad," Frank said to Fenton. "What about Joe? Can't we go look for him?"

Fenton was about to reply, but Collig had been listening and now he interrupted. "No, Frank. This Shanth kid is probably armed. My officers can take care of it." With a significant glance at Brown, he added, "These guys don't need anything more to get charged with."

Brown shifted his feet uncomfortably. "Look, you can pin anything on me that these others did. The woman and the kid thought this whole thing up, and O'Riley was part of it because he had a beef with the first four guys they had knocked off. None of us knew we were going to get involved with the Hardys, and we all thought the Shakespeare stuff was dumb."

"How about you tell us about it?" Collig suggested.

Shifting his feet again, Brown looked around at everyone who was surrounding him. "I don't know a whole lot about it. O'Riley and the woman and the kid all wanted Donahue and Kelly and the other two dead. I guess O'Riley and Donahue were some sort of rivals in the Irish Mob and they both were up to replace some bigwig who got killed years ago. Donahue won out, but made a mess of it. He turned everything over to Kelly and came to Bayport to hide out, but he kept his finger in everything. Pierce and Margot supported Donahue. That's all I know. I don't know what the woman and the kid had against them."

"That's not everything you know, Brown," Collig told him. "Who killed who here?"

"I only helped kill Margot," Brown muttered. "Might as well admit it. O'Riley did in Donahue and Kelly and Pierce himself."

"What about Rodonna Shanth?" Collig asked.

"What about her?" Brown looked confused.

"Who killed her?" Collig pressed.

Brown blinked in astonishment. "She's dead? Hallelujah. She was evil, I tell you. I know I've done some things you all would think are bad, but her." He shook his head. "There's only one person I've ever met more evil than her."

"Who's that?" Frank asked.

Going pale at the thought of whoever this extraordinary evil-doer was, Brown didn't reply.

"Never mind about that," Collig said. "What about Donahue's and Margot's kids? What happened to them?"

"Donahue's kid is tied up in _her_ basement," Brown told him. "I don't know nothing about Margot's kid. We were ordered not to hurt her."

"Get some people over at the Shanth house now," Collig told one of his officers, who hurriedly made the radio call.

"You said you thought the Shakespeare thing was stupid," Collig reminded Brown. "What did you mean?"

"We were each supposed to be a character from _Macbeth_ ," Brown explained. "O'Riley was Macbeth, us other three were the three murderers, the kid was the fourth murderer, and the woman was Lady Macbeth. Each of the people they knocked off were a character, too. Margot's kid and Don-"

He was interrupted by the sound of two shots coming so close together they almost sounded like one. Frank felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and as he saw Fenton's suddenly pale face, he knew that his father was thinking the same thing.

HBHBHBHBHB

"But you don't have your girlfriend to hide behind this time." Terry held his gun up and fingered the trigger.

Joe's mind had such a confusion of emotions whirling around it that he didn't even know what he was feeling. A dozen thoughts flashed through his brain at once – that Terry was right and Iola being shot was Joe's fault, that he _had_ hidden behind her like a coward, that it was too late now for the miracle he'd been praying for – namely that he would somehow be rescued - to happen, that he was going to die.

That last thought brought almost a wave of calm over Joe. It seemed so inevitable that there was no point in being afraid about it. It would happen anyway. But then it didn't.

"Shanth! Drop the gun!"

Both Terry and Joe looked at the source of the voice. It was Lieutenant Olaf. He must have followed Joe after all. Joe's deadly calm only a moment before was immediately replaced by an almost giddy relief.

After that quick glance, Terry looked back at Joe and gripped his gun in both hands. "I won't. Not until after Joe Hardy is dead." Despite his confident words and tone, Joe thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Don't be an idiot," Olaf warned him. "You're in deep enough trouble as it is. Don't make things even worse for yourself."

Terry scowled with hate. "You're the idiot if you think I care what happens to me. I'd rather have Fenton Hardy in my sights, but if this is the best I can do, after everything he's done to me, do you think I'd give up the chance to make Fenton Hardy suffer?"

He squeezed the trigger and the sound of the shot filled the twilit woods.


	22. Chapter 22

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and especially for reviewing! I'd like to thank Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver in particular for your reviews on the last chapter. This is the last real chapter, although there will be an epilogue after this to tie up one last loose end before we go on to Part 2._

Chapter XXII

A second shot followed the first before the sound had even died away. Within that split second, Joe felt something rip through his arm, and he had sunk down to his knees before the pain even registered.

Then it registered. Some sound in between a gasp and a groan escaped Joe's lips and he looked dumbly at his arm. It felt like it was on fire. It didn't look much better. A jagged hole was ripped in the sleeve and blood was dripping down his arm at an alarming rate. A fuzzy feeling enveloped Joe's head. He knew it meant he was about to pass out, but he couldn't think anything out clearly beyond that. With another grunt of pain, he sat the rest of the way down, still staring at the wound on his arm.

"Let me see your arm, Joe." The voice broke roughly into Joe's consciousness and he looked up to see that Lieutenant Olaf was right beside him. Olaf grabbed hold of Joe's arm, causing him to wince. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"I'm fine," Joe lied mechanically, but his unsteady voice wasn't convincing.

"I'll decide that," Olaf told him. He took a moment to examine the injury. "It's not as bad as it could be. Looks like the bullet grazed your arm, but I don't think it hit any arteries."

Joe didn't respond. His head felt like it didn't weigh anything at all, and cloudiness almost seemed like it was obscuring his vision. Not quite, though. Ahead of him, he saw Terry, clasping a hand on his thigh, start limping and crawling away faster than he would have expected someone who had been apparently shot in the leg to be able to do.

"Olaf," Joe said, pointing with his uninjured arm. Just now, he couldn't think of the words to warn him that Terry was escaping.

Olaf looked up and when he saw what was happening, he muttered a curse and made a move to jump up and stop him. As he did, he happened to glance at Joe's ghastly pale face. "Are you going to pass out?"

"Get Terry," was all Joe replied.

"You'd better lie down," Olaf told him.

For a moment, Joe remained too stubborn to listen. Then he swayed and almost fell. That convinced him and he lay back. He felt Olaf put something over his wound and hold his arm up. As consciousness drifted away, the last thing he heard was Olaf calling for back-up on his radio.

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe was lying on his back on the ground. He couldn't say whether he was there suddenly or if he had been for a long time. He didn't even think about that; he was just there and that was all there was to it. Someone was holding his arm up in the air and muttering curses about some "kid". Out of the swirling mist, Joe realized it was Olaf.

Joe blinked once or twice. There was something shaky and dim and far away about everything, as if it were all on a different plane of existence. That had to be it. "Glad it's not real," Joe murmured in relief.

"What was that?" the dream Olaf demanded, and his voice was annoyingly solid. What was even worse was that he seemed to have been distracted and Joe's voice made him jump, tugging on Joe's arm and sending a very real spasm of pain through it.

Joe gasped as reality flooded back to him and the pain in his arm didn't go away.

"Sorry about that," Olaf said, his voice actually sounding sincere. "You passed out on me and scared me. How are you doing?"

"Ugh," Joe groaned. Then he remembered what had happened just before he had lost consciousness. With a start, he half-sat up. "Did Terry get away?"

"He's getting away," Olaf admitted. "But he won't get too far. I hit him in the leg. Back-up should be here in a minute. The Chief said they were already searching for us and Shanth."

Joe nodded weakly. Sitting up had made him dizzy again, and he sank back down before he could faint once more.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was nearly forty-five minutes before the paramedics arrived, with Fenton, Frank, Biff, Phil, and a number of police officers with them. Joe had chased Terry farther than he had realized, and despite the best directions Olaf could give, without a clear trail, they had a hard time finding them.

By that time, Joe's arm had nearly stopped bleeding and he was feeling far less woozy. He could sit up without becoming light-headed, and had long-since begun to complain about Olaf continuing to hold his arm above his head. Even so, though Joe would never have admitted it to anyone, he had begun to form a higher opinion of Olaf than he had ever had before.

When he saw the rescue party coming, he shouted, "It's about time you guys showed up. If I was really hurt, I would have bled to death by now."

Fenton and the three boys all breathed silent sighs of relief. The time they had taken to get there had been tortuous with worry, despite the fact that Olaf had reported over the radio several times that Joe seemed to be doing pretty well. Joe's shout was the final confirmation that they needed to really believe it.

Biff grinned and called back, "We didn't see any reason to hurry!"

Joe was about to retort with another crack about dying when he noticed how drawn his father's and brother's faces still were. Instead he changed it to, "Well, there really wasn't. See? It's practically already stopped bleeding."

By now, the rescue party had reached him and Olaf. Frank sat down next to Joe and managed a small smile. "You know, that really was a dumb thing you did."

Joe grinned back as the paramedics began examining and bandaging his arm. "How else was I going to get to be the center of attention?"

"I can think of a few better ways," Fenton said, placing a hand on Joe's uninjured shoulder. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine, Dad," Joe assured him.

Once the paramedics had arrived, Olaf had backed away. He was stretching and rubbing his arms, which were tired and sore from having to keep Joe's arm elevated for so long. Chief Collig left the group as well to talk to him.

"What exactly happened?" Collig asked.

Olaf explained. He finished by saying, "I didn't know what else to do when Shanth started getting away. I didn't think he'd get far, and besides, I couldn't leave Joe by himself. There wasn't any way to stop him, besides shooting him in the back, and I don't have the stomach for that."

For a second, Joe felt Fenton's hand tighten on his shoulder. He turned his head to look at his dad's face and noticed a distant look in his eyes. A moment later, Fenton realized that Joe was looking at him and he returned the glance with a smile. Joe couldn't help feeling, though, that it wasn't a genuine smile.

HBHBHBHBHB

Frank drummed his fingers absently on the armrest of his chair in the hospital waiting room. Aunt Gertrude was sitting next to him, pretending to read a magazine, but since she had been on the same page for twenty minutes, Frank easily guessed that it was a pretense. Fenton and Laura were standing a short distance away, talking quietly enough that Frank couldn't hear them.

It had taken tact to break the news that Joe had been shot to Laura and Aunt Gertrude without completely panicking them. It had been mostly a success, but Frank suspected that they weren't entirely convinced that Joe's injury hadn't been severe. It didn't help matters that they hadn't gotten a chance to see Joe before he had gone into the emergency room.

"Hey, imagine bumping into you here," a voice broke into Frank's thoughts.

He looked up to see Chet standing next to him. Chet looked a great deal more tired and wan than Frank was used to seeing him. "Same to you."

Chet sat down next to him, on the opposite side from Aunt Gertrude. He grinned slightly. "Hopefully this place isn't going to become one of my usual haunts. Our younger siblings really need to learn to be more careful, huh?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "How is Iola?"

"She says she's ready to get out of here," Chet told him, "but the doctors say otherwise. They did say she's doing well enough she might be able to get out a little earlier than they originally thought. How about Joe?"

"He's fine," Frank replied, a little more loudly than he needed to for Laura's and Aunt Gertrude's benefits. "It's not even that deep of a wound. He mostly just needs stitches."

"That's great," Chet said. "Iola wanted me to tell you guys that she really wants to see you, especially Joe. I think she's worried he's blaming himself for the whole thing and wants to set him straight. She can have visitors tomorrow, and she was hinting that she hoped you'd take school off in the morning to come see her."

"Considering the weekend we've had, I don't think anyone could blame us taking the day off," Frank agreed. "Especially Joe."

HBHBHBHBHB

It was late and Laura had insisted that Joe ought to get to bed as soon as possible, a sentiment that the doctor who had treated him agreed with. Joe, however, insisted that he wouldn't be able to sleep until he'd heard whatever the police had learned from their prisoners about the mystery, a sentiment that Fenton and Frank agreed with. They won the point, and a stop was made at police headquarters on the way home.

As it turned out, there was a great deal of news. Although Earl O'Riley, Trevor Thanning, and Ken Faquary had maintained a stony silence, Virgil Brown had decided to tell everything he knew. The Hardys gathered in Chief Collig's office to listen to him repeat what he had learned.

Devin Matthias had had an important position in one of the New York families of the Irish Mob. Brian Donahue had been his right-hand man years ago before Matthias had been arrested for the first time. Simeon Margot, Greg Kelly, Hunter Pierce, and Earl O'Riley, among others, had also been in Matthias's elite circle.

After Matthias was murdered fifteen years earlier, Donahue and O'Riley had both tried to take over the family. Donahue had won out, but had done a poor job and the family had fallen apart. In an attempt to protect himself, Donahue set Kelly up to look like Matthias's heir and had retreated to Bayport to lay low. Margot also moved to Bayport and eventually married a local woman whose first husband had left her, leaving her with a teenage Clarissa to raise. Pierce and Kelly also frequently visited to discuss what little "business" the family still managed to run.

Rodonna Shanth and her son Terry had approached O'Riley with the plan of killing his rivals using Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ as a model for the crimes. Their only interest seemed to be making sure that the plot would include the annihilation of Fenton Hardy and his family, although Brown insisted that he never learned what the Shanths' grudge against the Hardys was.

Brown, Faquary, and Thanning had been brought in to play the part of the three murderers. They had also been tasked with holding Evan Donahue captive in the house that the Shanths had rented for them. Evan had been found there and was in good health. Clarissa, on the other hand, was still missing and no one seemed to know where she had gone.

The three hired murderers had never actually seen Rodonna Shanth, as it turned out. They had always dealt with either Terry or Helena Markovich, but both of them had talked about the genius of Rodonna in forming the plan. Brown had no idea who Helena Markovich was nor where she might have gone.

There were several points, however, that Brown was confused on himself. He didn't have any idea why Rodonna Shanth had killed herself, nor did he know anything about the sabotage to the school play. All he could say about that was that Terry had been behind it and he thought that it might have been an attempt to put the Hardys, Donahues, and Margots all off-balance prior to the main plot unfolding, or else to complicate the matter for the police and the Hardys by having the common theme of _Macbeth_ and involving many of the same people.

"As for Terry," Collig concluded, "my officers are still combing the woods for him. They haven't found him yet, but I've no doubt they will by morning."

"They'd better," Frank said. "Otherwise, we'll have to leave this mystery unsolved."

"And this is one mystery that we definitely need to solve," Joe added firmly.


	23. Epilogue

_Author's Note: Thank you so very much to Barb, BMSH, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Epilogue

"There are some benefits to getting shot," Joe commented as he and Frank rode the elevator to the floor in the hospital where Iola was. "I mean, it's gotten both me and Iola out of school today, and Iola's going to be out of school for who knows how long."

"Personally, I think I've done better," Frank teased him. "I didn't even have to get shot to get out of school today."

"You'll just have to take one for the team next time," Joe retorted.

They stepped out of the elevator and checked the directory on the wall to see which direction Iola's room was in.

"I just wish the police would have caught Terry last night," Joe commented, scowling a little in anger. "I don't get how he got away."

Frank shook his head in bewilderment. "Me neither. It doesn't make any sense."

They met the Mortons outside Iola's door. Chet and his parents greeted them warmly, all of them looking relieved and even cheerful.

"What lovely roses," Mrs. Morton commented to Joe, gesturing the bouquet of white roses that he was holding in his good arm.

Joe blushed a little despite himself. "Well, Iola said one time that they were her favorites."

"Iola also said she wanted to see you by yourself," Chet said, rolling his eyes.

Joe blushed even more at the implication. Frank grinned behind Joe's back, but quickly put on a straight face with Joe turned to look at him.

Determined not to give Chet and Frank any opportunity to start teasing him, Joe went ahead to knock on the door. Iola's soft voice said to come in. Taking a deep breath, Joe pushed the door open and went inside. He closed the door behind him and then looked across the room at Iola.

He hadn't been sure what he had been expecting, but he was relieved to see her sitting up and much less pale than she had been last time he had seen her. She even smiled at him when he came into the room.

"Hi," Joe said, suddenly feeling shy.

"Hi," Iola replied as if she were trying to sound bright and cheery but was a little too nervous for it to be genuine. "Those roses are beautiful, Joe. You shouldn't have."

"It's no big deal," Joe told her. "Where do you want me to put them?"

"Right next to the bed would be fine," Iola said, a little distractedly as she had noticed Joe's arm in a sling. "What happened to you? They told me you weren't hurt."

Joe also glanced at his own arm. "Oh. No, I wasn't. Not on Saturday, anyway. This isn't anything." He set the roses on the stand next to the bed and then pulled a chair up so that he could sit in it. "Iola, I don't even know how to say how sorry I am."

Iola gave him a sort of sad half-grin. "Then don't. There's nothing to be sorry for. You couldn't have stopped what happened."

"There's a million things I could have done to prevent it," Joe told her.

"There's a million things I could have done, too," Iola reminded him, "but the thing is, it's not worth it. I mean – I'm not explaining it very well. You'd have to give up being a detective to make sure things like this happen, and then something else would just happen. I'd rather have you be you and take the risk."

Joe looked away, feeling so confused. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, and he certainly wasn't sure which one he'd wind up doing.

"Oh, of course," Iola quickly said. "I guess that sounds pretty awkward after – What I said the other night, before – I didn't mean it exactly the way it sounded."

"You didn't?" Joe asked. "I was hoping you did, because I didn't mean what I said at all the way it sounded."

"Joe, you don't have to pretend," Iola protested. "If you're just trying to make me not feel like the idiot I am, you don't have to. I just hope we can still be friends."

"I'm not pretending," Joe insisted. "You know me well enough to know I wouldn't pretend something like that to try to spare your feelings, especially since we both know that that would hurt us both even more in the end. But, really, Iola, I've felt the same way about you for years now. I've just been too terrified to say anything about it."

"Really, Joe? Really?" Iola asked, her eyes tearing up.

Joe nodded. "Really."

"You promise?" Iola looked up at him.

Impulsively, Joe got up from his chair and came closer to her. "I promise. And I'd like to show you that I mean it, if that all right with you." When Iola smiled and nodded, Joe leaned forward and kissed her.

 _Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading_ Curse of the Scottish Play. _I've had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. I want to say a very super huge thank you to everyone who has left reviews. I was blown away by how positive many of them were, and I am super grateful for every single one of them. To that end, I'd like to thank Barb, BMSH, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, TinDog, and Guest for leaving reviews on all or some of the chapters. That being said, I'm saving the biggest thank you of all for Cherylann Rivers. She's reviewed every single chapter I have posted and is always upbeat and helpful. In addition to that, she's a fantastic writer herself, and it's thrilling to have such a great writer leave good reviews._

 _So here we are at the end of this first part. And no, you didn't miss something. There are a lot of questions still not answered. Why does Terry hate the Hardys so much? Why did he sabotage the play? What happened to Clarissa? Is she a victim or a villain? Who's Helena Markovich and how does she fit into everything? What was Fenton's case and why is it still affecting him so deeply? Besides that, they still have to catch Terry. All of these questions will be answered in the next two parts of the story._

 _I'll post the first chapter of Part 2 around the middle of September, so check back then. It will be titled_ The Arrow and the Chalice. _This one will be focused on Nancy, although Frank and Joe will play a minor role in it. I know some of you are diehard Hardy Boys fans and a solo Nancy story might not appeal to you, but there will be a lot of important details revealed in it. Most importantly of all (from a Hardy Boys fan standpoint), it's going to explore just what Nancy's relationship with Frank and Joe is like and it's going to explain A LOT about Fenton's case. So I hope you read it, but more than that, I hope you enjoy it!_

 _As a final disclaimer, I don't own the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or any of the characters I've borrowed from their books. This includes Olaf, who is a character in the currently published_ Hardy Boys Adventures. _Sorry for any confusion on that point. I would have said something sooner, but I didn't want to clear a suspect in an author's note!_


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